Upregulation of long non coding RNA PCAT-1 contributes to cell proliferation, migration and apoptosis in hepatocellular carcinoma

Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) exert regulatory functions on various biological processes in cancer cells, including proliferation, apoptosis and mobility. Prostate cancer-associated transcript 1 (PCAT-1) is a novel lncRNA that promotes cell proliferation in prostate cancer, however, the effect of PCAT-1 in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) remains to be elucidated. The present study hypothesized that PCAT-1 also exerts an important effect in HCC. The current study investigated PCAT-1 expression levels in HCC tissue samples and HepG2 and Bel-7402 cell lines using the reverse transcription-quantitative polymerase chain reaction. The results demonstrated that PCAT-1 was upregulated in HCC tissue samples and cell lines compared with adjacent non-cancerous tissues and the L02 normal liver epithelial cell line. PCAT-1 suppression using PCAT-1 small hairpin RNA in HepG2 and Bel-7402 cells inhibited cell proliferation and migration, and induced apoptosis. Overexpression of PCAT-1 induced synthetic plasmid vectors was demonstrated to increase cell proliferation and migration, and inhibit apoptosis. Results from the present study suggest that PCAT-1 exerts an oncogenic effect in HCC and silencing PCAT-1 may be a potential novel therapeutic strategy for HCC.