LncRNA-DANCR contributes to lung adenocarcinoma progression by sponging miR-496 to modulate mTOR expression.

Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) have emerged as new and important regulators of pathological processes including tumour development. In this study, we demonstrated that differentiation antagonizing non-protein coding RNA (DANCR) was up-regulated in lung adenocarcinoma (ADC) and that the knockdown of DANCR inhibited tumour cell proliferation, migration and invasion and restored cell apoptosis rescued; cotransfection with a miR-496 inhibitor reversed these effects. Luciferase reporter assays showed that miR-496 directly modulated DANCR; additionally, we used RNA-binding protein immunoprecipitation (RIP) and RNA pull-down assays to further confirm that the suppression of DANCR by miR-496 was RISC-dependent.