NRAV promoted the malignant progression of gastric cancer.

Abstract

Gastric cancer (GC) has been ranked as the third incidence tumors globally. Long non-coding RNA (lncRNA) NRAV has been reported as a tumor-enhancer in the development of human cancers, whereas the function of NRAV in GC remains to be elucidated. The aim of this research was to explore the underlying function of NRAV in GC. Through comprehensive bioinformatics analysis, a significantly elevation of NRAV was found in both human GC tissues and cell lines, which indicated the poor prognosis of GC patients. Then, we conducted a series of functional experiments to illustrate the role of NRAV in GC. The results showed that the down-regulation of NRAV exhibited a significant inhibitory effect on GC cell proliferation and migration, while NRAV overexpression promoted GC cell proliferation and migration. Through xenograft mouse tumor model, the suppression of NRAV led to a reduction in the growth of tumor mice, whereas overexpression of NRAV notably enhanced tumor growth. Finally, EFHC1 was revealed as the potential target gene of NRAV. Overall, our findings indicated the promising application of NRAV as a therapeutic target and prognostic biomarker for GC.