ABSTRACT
Objective To explore the significance of long non-coding RNA (lncRNA) taurine up-regulated gene 1 (TUG1) in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC),to predict the target gene of TUG1,and to provide a ref-erence for further study of TUG1 in HCC.Methods The differential expression of TUG1 in HCC was ana-lyzed by using the UALCAN database and the survival analysis of TUG1 was performed.The target gene of TUG1 was predicted by RegRNA 2.0 biology software,HMDD,targetscan and microT-CDS,and the regulato-ry network of lncRNA TUG1-microRNAs-mRNAs was constructed.The predicted target gene was analyzed by Gene Ontology (GO) and KEGG signal transduction pathway enrichment by using FunRich platform. Results TUG1 expression in HCC was significantly increased,and the expression level of TUG1 increased generally with the increase of tumor grade.The overall survival of patients with low expression of lncRNA TUG1 was significantly longer than that of lncRNA TUG1 high expression patients.There were four possible binding sites of HCC related microRNAs (hsa-mir-122-5p,hsa-mir-200a-3p,hsa-mir-34c-3p,hsa-mir-629-3p) on TUG1,which regulated 245 downstream target genes and formed the regulatory network of lncRNA TUG1-microRNAs-mRNAs.In the biological process,microRNA target genes were highly enriched in the processes such as the regulation of nucleobase,nucleoside,nucleotide and nucleic acid metabolism.In KEGG pathway analysis,microRNA target genes were highly enriched to the signal pathways mediated by Syndecan and TRAIL.Conclusion TUG1 expression level in HCC increased.Increased expression of TUG1 is associat-ed with poor prognosis in HCC.Bioinformatics methods can be used to explore the mechanism of tumorigene-sis from the molecular level,which can provide valuable information for subsequent experiments and clinical diagnosis and treatment.