Increased expression of long non-coding RNA CCEPR is associated with poor prognosis and promotes tumorigenesis in urothelial bladder carcinoma

Recent emerging evidences have showed that long non-coding RNAs play important regulatory roles in diverse biological processes of tumor development and progression. CCEPR (cervical carcinoma expressed PCNA regulatory lncRNA) is a novel identified lncRNA that acts as a potential biomarker and involves in development and progression of cervical carcinoma. Nevertheless, we know nothing about the clinical significance and molecular mechanism of CCEPR in bladder cancer. In this study, we found that CCEPR was significantly up-regulated in bladder cancer. Furthermore, up-regulated CCEPR expression was positively correlated with advanced TNM stage and higher histological grade. Moreover, further experiments demonstrated that CCEPR promotes cell proliferation and suppresses cell apoptosis in bladder cancer. Mechanistically, we found CCEPR upregulates the expression of PCNA in mRNA and protein level to promote cancer growth. In conclusions, these findings demonstrated that CCEPR plays an important regulatory role in bladder cancer and may serve as a potential diagnostic biomarker and therapeutic target.