Decreased expression of the long non-coding RNA SLC7A11-AS1 predicts poor prognosis and promotes tumor growth in gastric cancer.

Many lncRNA and mRNA sense-antisense transcripts have been systematically identified in malignant cells. However, the molecular mechanisms of most lncRNA-mRNA pairs in gastric cancer remain largely unknown. We found the gastric cancer-associated lncRNA SLC7A11-AS1 and coding transcript mRNA SLC7A11 in human gastric cancer specimens by microarray. SLC7A11-AS1, antisense to SLC7A11, is significantly down-regulated in gastric cancer and could promote tumor growth in vitro and in vivo . The effects of SLC7A11-AS1 depend on the regulation of SLC7A11 via the ASK1-p38MAPK /JNK signaling pathway. These findings suggest that decreased expression of SLC7A11-AS1 contributes to the progression of gastric cancer and may be a novel diagnostic biomarker and effective therapeutic target in gastric cancer patients.