LncRNA SNHG14 promotes the progression of cervical cancer by regulating miR-206/YWHAZ

Accumulating evidence suggests that lncRNAs play key roles in many cancers. It has been reported that long non-coding RNA SNHG14 promotes cell proliferation and metastasis in multiple cancers. However, the role and underlying molecular mechanism of SNHG14 in cervical cancer (CC) remain largely unclear. In this study, we discovered that the relative expression of SNHG14 was significantly upregulated in CC tissues and cells, and associated with the overall survival of CC patients. Moreover, knockdown of SNHG14 significantly inhibited cell proliferation, migration and invasion, and promoted cell apoptosis in CC. Molecular mechanism explorations revealed that SNHG14 acted as a sponge of miR-206 and that YWHAZ was a downstream target gene of miR-206 in CC. Spearman's correlation analysis uncovered a significantly negative correlation between SNHG14 (or YWHAZ) and miR-206 expression, while a significantly positive correlation between SNHG14 and YWHAZ expression in CC tissues. We also found that the effect of SNHG14 knockdown on the CC progression could be partly rescued by overexpression of YWHAZ at the same time. Our findings revealed that SNHG14 acted as a sponge of miR-206 to regulate the expression of YWHAZ in CC, hinting the promising therapeutic target role of SNHG4 for CC patients.