Transcriptome Sequencing Analysis Reveals the Regulatory Mechanism of LncRNA TUG1 in Epithelial Ovarian Cancer

Abstract

Background: Epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) is a kind of malignant tumor in women all over the world. Recent studies have demonstrated that long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) play a regulatory role in the progression of many cancers, but the exact mechanism is unknown. This study attempts to reveal the mechanism of taurine up-regulated gene 1 (TUG1) in EOC through transcriptome sequencing analysis and experimental research. Methods: Quantitative real-time reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) was applied to detect the TUG1 expression in EOC cell lines. The activity and the metastasis of EOC cells transfected with si-TUG1 and si-NC were observed using Cell Counting Kit-8 (CCK-8) and Transwell® assay, respectively. The possible mechanisms of TUG1 to regulate the development of EOC were analyzed by transcriptome sequencing and verified by qRT-PCR. The sequencing sample grouping mainly included silencing TUG1 (si-TUG1) and silencing negative control (si-NC). Results: Abnormally elevated TUG1 was observed in EOC tissues compared with the adjacent tissues and benign tumor tissues (p < 0.01), and silencing TUG1 inhibited the life activities of cancer cells. The differentially expressed genes in two cell samples were screened by sequencing analysis. Functional analysis showed that TUG1 was related to bone mineralization, neuroactive ligand-receptor interaction and various cardiomyopathy, and TUG1 regulated the expression of related proteins. It was verified that silencing TUG1 enhanced the expression of B-cell lymphoma 2 (BCL2) binding component 3 (BBC3), Tumor necrosis factor receptor (TNFR) associated factor 1 (TRAF1), interleukin 1 receptor type 1 (IL1R1) and cyclin G1 (CCNG1) proteins and inhibited the expression of B-cell lymphoma 2 (BCL2)-like (BCL2L) compared with the si-NC group (p < 0.01). Conclusions: This study demonstrated the potential regulatory mechanism and target protein of TUG1 by transcriptome sequencing analysis, which provided a new insight into the role of TUG1 in EOC.