Unregulated long non-coding RNA-AK058003 promotes the proliferation, invasion and metastasis of breast cancer by regulating the expression levels of the γ-synuclein gene.

The aim of the present study was to investigate the function of long chain non-coding RNA (lncRNA) in breast cancer cells. Quantitative polymerase chain reaction was used to measure mRNA expression levels in breast cancer tissues, adjacent tissues and in MCF-7 breast cancer cells. Western blot analysis was used to determine the protein expression levels. In addition, a 3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide assay was employed to measure the rates of cell proliferation. The invasion and migration of the MCF-7 cells were examined using a Transwell® assay. The expression levels of lncRNA-AK058003 were increased significantly in the breast cancer tissues and were found to strongly correlate with the severity of the breast cancer clinical stage. Bioinformatics analysis revealed that the γ-synuclein gene (SNCG) may be a target gene regulated by lncRNA-AK058003. Thus, lncRNA-AK058803 was downregulated using small interfering RNA, and the mRNA and protein expression levels of SNCG were shown to be significantly reduced. Furthermore, the proliferation, invasion and migration rates of the MCF-7 breast cancer cells were significantly reduced. Therefore, the results demonstrated that unregulated lncRNA-AK058003 in breast cancer cells promotes cancer cell proliferation, invasion and metastasis via the regulation of SNCG expression.