ABSTRACT
@#[Abstract] Objective: To explore the regulatory effect of long non-coding RNA (lncRNA) SNHG5 on invasion and migration of hypoxia-induced hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) cells. Methods: A total of 20 pairs of cancer and para-cancerous tissue specimens resected from HCC patients in the First Affiliated Hospital of Xi'an Jiaotong University from January 2017 to June 2018, and human HCC cell lines (HepG2, MHCC-97L, MHCC-97H , Huh7) as well as immortalized human liver LO2 cells were collected for this study. Bioinformatics methods were used to analyze the binding sites between hypoxia-inducible factor 1α (HIF-1α) and SNHG5. pCMVHIF-1α and shRNA-SNHG5 (sh-SNHG5) plasmids were transfected into HCC cells, respectively. qPCR was used to detect the expres‐ sion level of SNHG5 in HCC tissues and hypoxia-induced HCC cells. Western botting was used to detect the expression level of HIF-1α protein in HCC cells, and Transwell chamber method was used to detect the migration and invasion ability of HCC cells after SNHG5 si‐ lence under normoxia and hypoxia condition. Results: Compared with para-cancerous tissues and immortalized human liver LO2 cells, the expression of SNHG5 was significantly up-regulated in HCC tissues and cell lines (all P<0.01). Hypoxia promoted the expression level of SNHG5 in HCC cells, and its mechanism might be related to the combination of hypoxia-activated HIF-1α and SNHG5 promoter to promote its transcription. Hypoxia promoted the invasion and migration ability of HepG2 and MHCC-97L cells (all P< 0.01), but knockdown of SNHG5 significantly inhibited the invasion and migration ability of HepG2 and MHCC-97L cells under hy‐ poxic conditions (all P<0.01). Conclusion: SNHG5 is highly expressed in HCC tissues and cell lines and plays an important role in the invasion and migration of HCC cells induced by hypoxia.