LncRNA MIAT facilitates osteosarcoma progression by regulating mir-128-3p/VEGFC axis.

The aberrant expression of long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) has been involved in the progression of many human tumors including osteosarcoma (OS). However, the biological function and the underlying mechanism of the lncRNA myocardial infarction-associated transcript (MIAT) in OS remain unclear. In the present study, we found that lncRNA MIAT was significantly up-regulated in both OS tissues and cell lines, and high expression of MIAT was positively associated with tumor size and lymph node metastasis of OS patients. In addition, knockdown of MIAT inhibited proliferation, migration, invasion and promoted apoptosis of OS cells in vitro. Moreover, the expression of MIAT was negatively associated with miR-128-3p but positively correlated with vascular endothelial growth factor C (VEGFC) in OS. Further mechanistic study revealed that lncRNA MIAT promoted OS progression by up-regulating VEGFC via sponging miR-128-3p in vitro. Taken together, our results suggest that MIAT/miR-128-3p/VEGFC axis contributes to OS progression and may be used as a novel therapeutic target for OS.