关键词: 长链非编码 RNA, Lnc-DQ, 肝癌, 干性特征

Abstract: Objective To investigate the expression of Lnc- DQ in hepatocellular carcinoma （HCC） and its role in regulating of the stemness characteristics of SMMC7721 cells. Methods The expression of Lnc- DQ was determined by real- time quantitative reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction（RT-qPCR）in HCC samples and cell lines. Cells were infected with negative control short hairpin RNAs（sh- NC）or specific shRNAs targeting Lnc- DQ （sh- Lnc- DQ）to generate stable Lnc- DQ knockdown cell lines. Colon formation ，anchorage- independent sphere formation and flow cytometry assays were used to analyze the effects of Lnc- DQ knockdown on the cancer stem- like phenotype of SMMC7721 cells. Results LncDQ was up-regulated in both HCC tissue samples and cell lines. shRNA transfection could significantly reduced the expression of Lnc-DQ in HCC cells. For colon formation assay，the colony number was 43.62±5.35 in sh-Lnc-DQ group，and was significantly lower than 94.31±5.07 in sh- NC group（P<0.05）. The mammosphere number in sh- Lnc- DQ group was small and lower than in sh- NC group（P<0.05）. The proportion of CD133 positive was 2.32% ± 0.25% in sh- Lnc- DQ group and 9.24% ± 0.69% in sh- NC group（P<0.05）. Conclusion LncDQ was up- regulated in HCC and play an important role in the regulating of the stemness related characteristics of SMMC7721 cells.

Key words: long noncoding RNA Lnc-DQ, hepatocellular carcinoma, stemness characteristics