The long non-coding RNA EPB41L4A-AS2 inhibits tumor proliferation and is associated with favorable prognoses in breast cancer and other solid tumors

EPB41L4A-AS2 is a novel long non-coding RNA of unknown function. In this study, we investigated the expression of EPB41L4A-AS2 in breast cancer tissues and evaluated its relationship with the clinicopathological features and prognosis of patients with breast cancer. This entailed conducting a meta-analysis and prognosis validation study using two cohorts from the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO). In addition, we assessed EPB41L4A-AS2 expression and its relationship with the clinicopathological features of renal and lung cancers using the Cancer Genome Atlas cohort and a GEO dataset. We also clarified the role of EPB41L4A-AS2 expression in mediating cancer cell proliferation in breast, renal, and lung cancer cell lines transfected with an EPB41L4A-AS2 expression vector. We found that high EPB41L4A-AS2 expression is associated with favorable disease outcomes. Gene ontology enrichment analysis revealed that EPB41L4A-AS2 may be involved in processes associated with tumor biology. Finally, overexpression of EPB41L4A-AS2 inhibited tumor cell proliferation in breast, renal, and lung cancer cell lines. Our clinical and in vitro results suggest that EPB41L4A-AS2 inhibits solid tumor formation and that evaluation of this long non-coding RNA may have prognostic value in the clinical management of such malignancies.