Research Paper|Volume 16, Issue 15|pp 11501—11512

Knockdown of long noncoding RNA AL161431.1 inhibits malignant progression of cholangiocarcinoma

Zhoulan Bai¹, Na Tian², Zhe Ding¹, Qing Lu¹, Yuchen Wang¹, Shangting Du², Yongfeng Hui³

¹Department of Radiation Oncology, General Hospital of Ningxia Medical University; Cancer Institute, Ningxia Medical University, Yinchuan 750004, Ningxia, PR China
²Department of Cardiology, Ningxia Medical University, Yinchuan 750004, Ningxia, PR China
³Department of Hepatobiliary Surgery, General Hospital of Ningxia Medical University, Yinchuan 750004, Ningxia, PR China

* Equal contribution

Received: November 15, 2023Accepted: March 25, 2024Published: August 1, 2024

https://doi.org/10.18632/aging.205898

Copyright: © 2024 Bai et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Abstract

Background: Cholangiocarcinoma (CCA) is one of the most deadly cancers in the world. It usually has a bad prognosis and is challenging to identify in its early stages. Long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) have been shown in an increasing number of studies to be important in the control of signaling pathways, cell behaviors, and epigenetic modification that contribute to the growth of tumors. The purpose of this work was to examine the relationship between CCA and lncRNA AL161431.1.

Methods: Using TCGA clinical survival data, we evaluated the association between AL161431.1 expression and patient prognosis. Using the program cluster Profiler R, enrichment analysis was performed. Additionally, the association between immune cell infiltration and AL161431.1 expression was evaluated by a review of the TCGA database. Next, to ascertain if AL161431.1 influences tumor growth, migration, and invasion in CCA, functional in vitro assays were conducted. Quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) was employed to gauge AL161431.1 expression levels in CCA cells. Western blot was used to measure protein levels.

Results: In CCA, AL161431.1 was extremely expressed. The patients in the high-risk group had a significantly poorer overall survival (OS) than the patients in the low-risk group. A more thorough look at the TCGA data showed a relationship between high expression levels of AL161431.1 and increased infiltration of T cells, T helper cells, and NK CD56dim cells. Furthermore, AL161431.1 knockdown in CCA cells impeded invasion, migration, and proliferation and also lowered the expression of phosphorylated Smad2/Smad3 to restrain the TGFβ/SMAD signaling pathway.

Conclusions: Our results indicate that the lncRNA AL161431.1 activates the TGFβ/SMAD signaling pathway to enhance CCA development and metastasis. AL161431.1 could be a novel target for cholangiocarcinoma treatment or a diagnostic marker.