Effect of LNCRNA MEG3 on CDKN2A and target genes in colorectal cancer cells

Colorectal cancer (CRC) continues to be an important health problem all over the world for many years. Long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) are RNA molecules that are longer than 200 nucleotides and generally cannot be translated into a protein. Recent studies have shown that various lncRNAs have important roles in CRC formation and metastasis. The aim of this study is to evaluate the role of lncRNA MEG3 and its isoform MEG3b, which has not yet been fully clarified in CRC, CDKN2A, which plays a key role in cell cycle control, and its targets. For this purpose, expression levels of lncRNA MEG3 and possible target genes in colon tissue and HCT-116 and HT-29 CRC cell lines were determined by qRT-PCR method. To increase MEG3 expression in these cell lines, cells were transfected with plasmid. In order to detect the CDKN2A-related regulation targeted by MEG3 and MEG3b in CRC cell lines, expression levels of CDKN2A and its target 17 genes were determined by qRT-PCR method before and after MEG3 and MEG3b transfection. After transfection, MEG3 overexpression caused a significant change in 14 of 17 target genes and MEG3b overexpression in 15 of 17 genes (p0.05). However, MEG3 and MEG3b transfection significantly increased the expression of CDKN2A in HT-29 cell line (p0.05). In addition, cell proliferation with MTT in CRC cells after transfection; migration with the wound healing test; colony formation ability was determined by the colony formation experiment. Overexpression of MEG3 and MEG3b significantly suppressed migration, proliferation and colony formation ability of CRC cells compared to control and empty plasmid (p0.05). These data have revealed the relationship between lncRNA MEG3 and CDKN2A target genes for the first time in the literature. Therefore, our work will contribute to the definition of the molecular interaction between lncRNA MEG3 and CDKN2A.