Abstract: Objective To investigate the effect of long non⁃coding RNA (lncRNA) LOC730101 on the biological behavior of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Methods R software was used to analyze the difference in the expression of LOC730101 in 374 HCC tissues and 50 normal tissues from the LIHC dataset of TCGA. 40 pairs of HCC tissues and corresponding adjacent tissues were collected from the patients with HCC who underwent surgical resection and were pathologically diagnosed in Guangxi Medical University Cancer Hospital in 2018, and the HCC cell lines Huh⁃7, HCCLM3, HepG2 and human normal liver cell line L02 were cultured. The relative expression level of LOC730101 in tissues and cell lines was detected by qRT⁃PCR. The stable overexpressing cell lines LOC730101 (OE⁃LOC730101) and knocking down LOC730101 (sh⁃LOC730101) were constructed by lentivirus infection in HCC cell lines Huh⁃7 and HCCLM3, the corresponding control group (control) and negative control groups (sh⁃NC, OE⁃NC) was set up at the same time, and qRT⁃PCR was used to verify the infection effect. The proliferation ability of cells in each group was detected by CCK⁃8. The migration and invasion ability of cells in each group were detected by wound healing assay and Transwell invasion assay. Results TCGA database analysis showed that the expression level of LOC730101 in HCC tissues was higher than that in normal tissues (P<0.001). The results of qRT⁃PCR showed that the expression level of LOC730101 in HCC tissues was significantly higher than that in adjacent tissues (P<0.001). The expression level of LOC730101 in liver cancer cell lines Huh⁃7, HepG2 and HCCLM3 were also higher than that in human normal liver cell line L02 (all P<0.05 ). Compared with the corresponding negative control group, the proliferation, migration and invasion ability of cells were decreased in the sh⁃LOC730101 group (all P<0.05), while increased in the OE⁃LOC730101 group (all P<0.01). Conclusions lncRNA LOC730101 is up⁃regulated in HCC tissues and cells, and may promote its proliferation, migration and invasion.

Key words: Hepatocellular carcinoma, lncRNA, LOC730101, Proliferation, Migration, Invasion