NF-κB-Mediated lncRNA AC007271.3 as A ceRNA Promotes Carcinogenesis of Oral Squamous Cell Carcinoma by Regulating Slug

Background: Oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) is the most common oral cancer. Our previous studies confirmed that dysregulation function of long non-coding RNA (lncRNA) AC007271.3 was associated with a poor prognosis and overexpression of AC007271.3 promoted cell proliferation, migration, invasion and inhibited cell apoptosis in vitro, and promoted tumor growth in vivo. However, the underlying mechanisms of AC007271.3 dysregulation remained obscure.Methods: Bioinformatics databases were used to predicted the potential down-stream targeted of AC007271.3 and verified by dual luciferase reporter assay. Core promoter region of AC007271.3 was identified by luciferase activity assay and the potential transcription factor on it was verified by ChIP assay. Western blot and qRT-PCR were performed to detect the protein and messenger RNA (mRNA) levels, respectively. Animal experiments confirmed the metastatic ability in vivo.Results: AC007271.3 functioned as competing endogenous RNA (ceRNA) by binding to miR-125b-2-3p and upregulated the expression of Slug, which is a direct target of miR-125b-2-3p. AC007271.3 enhanced the expression of Slug and inhibited the expression of E-cadherin to promote the migration and invasion in OSCC cells. The expression of AC007271.3 was promoted by canonical nuclear factor-κB (NF-κB) pathway. Conclusion: Our study showed that the classical NF-κB pathway-activated AC007271.3 regulates EMT by miR-125b-2-3p / Slug / E-cadherin axis to promote the development of OSCC, implicating it as a novel potential target for therapeutic intervention in this disease.