Long noncoding RNA SNHG6 silencing sensitized esophageal cancer cells to 5-FU via EZH2/STAT pathway

Chemotherapy was the main treatment method for esophageal cancer (EC) patients. However, chemotherapy resistance due to multiple factors is a major barrier to EC treatment. For investigating how small nucleolar RNA host gene 6 (SNHG6) affected the 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) resistance in EC as well as its possible molecular mechanism. This work conducted cell viability assay, clone formation, scratch assays together with cell apoptosis for evaluating the roles of SNHG6 and enhancer of zeste homolog 2 (EZH2, the histone-lysine N-methyltransferase). Relevant molecular mechanism was identified by RT-qPCR analysis together with Western-blot (WB) assays. Our data showed that SNHG6 expression increased in EC cells. SNHG6 promotes colony formation and migration, whereas suppresses EC cell apoptosis. SNHG6 silencing markedly promoted 5-FU-mediated suppression on KYSE150 and KYSE450 cells. Additional mechanism studies showed that SNHG6 modulating STAT3 and H3K27me3 via promoting EZH2 level. Similar to the function of SNHG6, abnormal expression of EZH2 promotes the malignancy of EC and intensifies its resistance to 5-FU. In addition, overexpression of EZH2 abolished the role of SNHG6 silencing in 5-FU sensitivity in EC cells. SNHG6 overexpression promoted malignancy of EC and increased EC cell resistance to 5-FU. Besides, further molecular mechanism studies provided a novel regulatory pathways that SNHG6 knockdown promoted EC cell sensitivity to 5-FU by modulating STAT3 and H3K27me3 via promoting EZH2 expression.