This study aimed to investigate the role of lncRNA terminal differentiation-induced ncRNA (TINCR) in cervical squamous cell carcinoma (CSCC). By informatics analysis, we found that miR-302 may bind TINCR. Expression analysis showed that miR-302 was downregulated, while TINCR was upregulated in CSCC. Correlation analysis showed that they were not significantly correlated. In CSCC cells, miR-302 and TINCR failed to affect the expression of each other. However, miR-302 overexpression led to downregulated and TINCR overexpression led to upregulated cyclin D1 expression in CSCC cells. Interestingly, overexpression of cyclin D1 led to upregulated miR-302 and TINCR. Cell proliferation analysis showed that TINCR and cyclin D1 overexpression led to increased, while miR-302 overexpression led to decreased rate of cell proliferation. Moreover, miR-302 overexpression reduced the effects of TINCR overexpression. Therefore, TINCR sponges miR-302 to upregulate cyclin D1 in CSCC, thereby promoting cell proliferation.
Keywords: Cervical squamous cell carcinoma; Cyclin D1; LncRNA TINCR; MiR-302; Proliferation.