Long non-coding RNA TPTEP1 inhibits hepatocellular carcinoma progression by suppressing STAT3 phosphorylation

BACKGROUND: Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is still the most common cause of tumor-related death worldwide and accumulating studies report that long non-coding RNAs (LncRNAs) are closely related with HCC development, metastasis and prognosis. Cisplatinum, a well-known chemotherapeutic drug, has been widely used for treatment of numerous human cancers including HCC. This study aimed to investigate the differential expressions of LncRNAs in HCC cells treated with cisplatinum and its underlying mechanism. METHODS: The differential expressions of LncRNAs in HCC cells treated with cisplatinum were determined by RNA-seq. The roles of TPTEP1 in HCC development by applying gene function gain and loss analysis in MHCC97H and QYG-7703 cell lines were detected by quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR), cell proliferation, colony formation, cell invasion and flow cytometry assays. The underlying mechanism of TPTEP1 sensitizing hepatocellular carcinoma cells to cisplatinum was examined by RNA-pull down, western blotting, subcellular fractionation, RNA immunoprecipitation and dual luciferase reporter assays. The effect of TPTEP1 on tumorigenesis in vivo was performed with a subcutaneous xenograft mouse model of HCC. In addition, TPTEP1 expression was detected in clinical tumor tissue samples by qRT-PCR. RESULTS: LncRNA TPTEP1 was highly expressed in cisplatinum-treated HCC cells, which sensitizes hepatocellular carcinoma cell to cisplatinum-induced apoptosis. TPTEP1 overexpression inhibited, while TPTEP1 knockdown promoted HCC cell proliferation, tumorigenicity and invasion. Furthermore, TPTEP1 exerted its tumor suppressing activities by interacting with signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 (STAT3) to inhibit its phosphorylation, homodimerization, nuclear translocation and down-stream genes transcription. Moreover, TPTEP1 overexpression obviously inhibits tumor masses in vivo in a subcutaneous xenograft mouse model of HCC and TPTEP1 is frequently downregulated in HCC tissues, compared to its corresponding pre-tumor tissues. CONCLUSION: LncRNA TPTEP1 inhibits hepatocellular carcinoma cells progression by affecting IL-6/STAT3 signaling. Taken together, our findings suggest a tumor suppressing role of TPTEP1 in HCC progression and provide a novel understanding of TPTEP1 during the chemotherapy for HCC. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s13046-019-1193-0) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.