Long non-coding RNA SCARNA2 induces cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma progression via modulating miR-342-3p expression.

Background: Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) play important roles in the progression of tumors. However, the function and expression of SCARNA2 in cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma (cSCC) is still unreported.

Methods: A quantitative polymerase chain reaction was applied to study the expression of SCARNA2 and miR-342-3p. Cell counting kit-8, flow cytometry and transwell assays were performed to study cell growth, cycle and cell invasion.

Results: We found that SCARNA2 expression is up-regulated in cSCC cell lines and SCARNA2 expression is higher in cSCC tissues than in adjacent non-tumor specimens. Ectopic expression of SCARNA2 promoted cell growth, cell cycle and invasion in SCC13 cells. In addition, the data indicate that miR-342-3p expression is down-regulated in cSCC cell lines and miR-342-3p is down-regulated in cSCC tissues compared to adjacent non-tumor specimens. We showed that the SCARNA2 expression is negatively associated with miR-342-3p in cSCC. Moreover, we noted that SCARNA2 sponges miR-342-3p expression in cSCC cells. Overexpression of SCARNA2 suppressed the miR-342-3p expressed in SCC13 cells. We found that elevated expression of SCARNA2 promotes cell growth, cell cycle and invasion via regulating miR-342-3p expression in SCC13 cells.

Conclusions: These data suggest that SCARNA2 acts in an oncogenic role and may be a potential target for cSCC.