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Research Paper|Volume 12, Issue 20|pp 20540—20560

Identification of a competing endogenous RNA axis related to gastric cancer

Fuqiang Zu1, Hezhou Han2, Weiwei Sheng3, Jian Sun3, Hui Zang1, Yu Liang1, Qingfeng Liu1
  • 1Department of General Surgery, The People’s Hospital of China Medical University, Shenyang 110016, Liaoning, China
  • 2Central Laboratory of General Surgery, Shengjing Hospital of China Medical University, Shenyang 110004, Liaoning, China
  • 3Department of Gastrointestinal and Hernia Surgery, First Affiliated Hospital of China Medical University, Shenyang 110001, Liaoning, China
Received: March 25, 2020Accepted: July 30, 2020Published: October 20, 2020
https://doi.org/10.18632/aging.103926

Copyright: © 2020 Zu et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Abstract

Competing endogenous RNA (ceRNA) pathways play pivotal roles in the formation and progression of gastric cancer (GC). Employing multi-omics analysis, we sought to identify a ceRNA network associated with GC progression. We analyzed3Gene Expression Omnibus datasets as well as data from The Cancer Genome Atlas to identify genes that were differentially expressed in GC tissues. A total of 84 upregulated genes and 106 downregulated genes were found. Enrichment analysis indicated that some pathways were strongly linked with tumor formation and progression. We also screened hub genes to establish a lncRNA-miRNA-mRNA network. We ultimately identified 8 hub genes, 6 key miRNAs and 4 key lncRNAs that interact within a common ceRNA network. Correlation analysis and in vitro experiments were conducted to verify the regulatory effect of the ceRNA network in GC. A knockdown assay confirmed that the DLGAP1-AS1/miR-203a-3p/THBS2 axis is a ceRNA network involved in GC progression. In this study, we elucidated the role of the DLGAP1-AS1/miR-203a-3p/THBS2 ceRNA network in the progression of GC. These molecules maybe evaluated as therapeutic targets and prognostic biomarkers for GC.