LncRNA SNHG15 acts as a ceRNA to regulate YAP1-Hippo signaling pathway by sponging miR-200a-3p in papillary thyroid carcinoma

Over the past decade, lncRNAs have been widely reported in human malignant tumors, including papillary thyroid carcinoma. LncRNA SNHG15 has been validated to be a tumor facilitator in several types of malignancies. The present study focused on the biological role of SNHG15 in papillary thyroid carcinoma. Based on the result of qPCR analysis, we identified the strong expression of SNHG15 in human papillary thyroid carcinoma tissues and cell lines. Moreover, Kaplan–Meier method was utilized to analyze the internal relevance between SNHG15 expression and overall survival rate of patients with papillary thyroid carcinoma. Loss-of-function assays were designed and conducted to determine the inhibitory effects of silenced SNHG15 on the cell growth and migration in papillary thyroid carcinoma. The mechanical investigation indicated that SNHG15 upregulated YAP1 by sponging miR-200a-3p. Moreover, results of gain-of-function assays validated the anti-oncogenic function of miR-200a-3p in papillary thyroid carcinoma. Finally, results of rescue assays validated the function of SNHG15-miR-200a-3p-YAP1 axis in papillary thyroid carcinoma. YAP1 is known as an oncogene and a core factor of Hippo pathway. Here, we demonstrated that SNHG15 inactivated Hippo signaling pathway in papillary thyroid carcinoma. In summary, our findings demonstrated that SNHG15 serves as a competitively endogenous RNA (ceRNA) to regulate YAP1-Hippo signaling pathway by sponging miR-200a-3p in papillary thyroid carcinoma.