Objective: Gastric cancer (GC) is a common malignancy of the digestive tract. Accumulated studies proved that long non-coding RNA MCM3AP-AS1 (MCM3AP-AS1) modified the mechanism of the progression of GC. However, the molecular mechanism is still greater elusive. Hence, we aimed to explore the molecular mechanism of MCM3AP-AS1 targeting the regulation of microRNA-708-5p on cell proliferation and apoptosis in GC cells.
Materials and methods: The expression levels of MCM3AP-AS1 (MCM3AP antisense RNA 1) in gastric mucosal cells GES-1 and gastric cancer cell lines of MGc-803 and SGC-7901 cells were detected by qRT-PCR. Moreover, the protein levels of Cyclin D1, P21, Bax and Bcl-2 in MGc-803 and SGC-7901 cells after transfection were detected by Western blot. MTT assay was performed to detect cell proliferation and flow cytometry was carried out to determine GC cell apoptosis in vitro. In the endpoint, the targeting relationship between MCM3AP-AS1 and microRNA-708-5p was detected by Dual-Luciferase reporter assay.
Results: The level of MCM3AP-AS1 was significantly promoted in GC cell lines. Knockdown of MCM3AP-AS1 curbed cell proliferation and enhanced apoptosis in MGc-803 and SGC-7901 cells. Furthermore, the effect of the downregulation of MCM3AP-AS1 on cell proliferation and apoptosis was reversed by knockdown of miR-708-5p, which was targeted by MCM3AP-AS1 in vitro.
Conclusions: MCM3AP-AS1 regulates the proliferation and apoptosis of gastric cancer cells by targeting the expression of microRNA-708-5p. The study may be useful to the therapy target of human GC.