Abstract

Gastric cancer (GC) is one of the most common malignant tumors of the digestive tract with a high degree of malignancy. There is considerable evidence that long non-coding RNA (lncRNA) is associated with the progression of GC. However, the relationship between LINC01224 and GC has not yet been elucidated. Here, we found that LINC01224 was highly expressed in GC and correlated with shortened overall survival time by bioinformatics analysis. We further confirmed that LINC01224 was highly expressed in GC specimens, which was positively correlated with TNM staging and shortened overall survival time. The bioinformatics analysis revealed that LINC01224 might be involved in regulating the proliferation and cell cycle of GC cells. Functional experiments further confirmed that knockdown of LINC01224 inhibited the proliferation of GC cells and induced apoptosis and G1 phase cell cycle arrest of GC cells. Besides, silencing of LINC01224 inhibited the growth of GC cells in vivo. Mechanistically, LINC01224 promoted the expression level of YES1 in GC cells by competitively binding to miR-193a-5p. Additionally, miR-193a-5p inhibitor and up-regulation of YES1 reversed the effects of knockdown of LINC01224 on the proliferation, apoptosis, and cell cycle of GC cells, whereas transfected mutant-LINC01224 plasmids did not. Our findings confirmed that LINC01224 could be a potential prognostic marker for GC. The LINC01224/miR-193a-5p/YES1 axis plays a vital role in the proliferation, cell cycle, and apoptosis of GC cells, and it could be a potentially important diagnostic and therapeutic target for GC.