Highly expressed HOXD-AS2 promotes the proliferation of cancer cell and leads to poor prognosis of colorectal cancer via TGF-β signaling pathway.

As important regulatory molecules, LncRNAs play an important role in regulating the pathological progress of malignant tumor. However, the effect of LncRNA-HOXD-AS2 on the prognosis of colorectal cancer and its regulatory mechanism has not been confirmed. Therefore, this study obtained the transcriptome data and clinicopathological characteristics of colorectal cancer from TCGA database to predict the impact of HOXD-AS2 on the prognosis of patients and its regulatory mechanism. It was found that the high expression of HOXD-AS2 had a positive relationship with the expression of pathological T and tumor stages and can significantly reduce the overall survival of patients and have diagnostic value for prognosis. Subsequent, GSEA prediction found that HOXD-AS2 could promote the activation of TGF-β signaling pathway. MTT assay and Ki67 staining assay confirmed that HOXD-AS2 knockdown could significantly inhibit the proliferation ability of the SW480 and SW620 cells of colorectal cancer. Transwell assay and wound healing assay demonstrated that knockdown of HOXD-AS2 could significantly inhibit the invasion and migration of SW480 and SW620 cells. Finally, Western blotting showed that the knockdown of HOXD-AS2 could significantly reduce the expression level of key proteins of TGF-β signaling pathway. Collectively, this study revealed the regulatory effect of HOXD-AS2 on the pathological mechanism of colorectal cancer for the first time, and broadened the molecular function of HOXD-AS2. The increased expression of HOXD-AS2 in colorectal cancer can be used as a biological target for the biological treatment of colorectal cancer.