LincRNA FEZF1-AS1 is associated with prognosis in lung adenocarcinoma and promotes cell proliferation, migration and invasion.

Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNA) have been reported to play important roles in tumorigenesis. In present study, we demonstrated long noncoding RNA (lncRNA) FEZF1 antisense RNA1 (FEZF1-AS1) is markedly upregulated in human lung adenocarcinoma (LAD) tissues, cell lines and associated with poor prognosis. Loss-of-function revealed that deletion of FEZF1-AS1 expression significantly inhibited the LAD cells proliferation, invasion and migration. Further studies revealed that downregulation of FEZF1-AS1 reduced mRNA and protein expression of its sense-cognate gene FEZF1 (forebrain embryonic zinc finger protein 1) in LAD cells, and vice versa. Correlation analysis indicated that there was a positive correlation between FEZF1-AS1 and FEZF1 expression in LAD tissues. Additionally, rescue assay confirmed that the function of FEZF1-AS1 in LAD was mediated by FEZF1. Our findings suggested that dysregulation of FEZF1-AS1 contributed to the progression of LAD which might be a potential target for LAD therapy.