Long non-coding RNA SNHG3 promotes progression of gastric cancer by regulating neighboring MED18 gene methylation

To understand the mechanistic involvement of long non-coding RNA (lncRNA) SNHG3 in gastric cancer (GC), the relative abundance of SNHG3 was determined by real-time PCR. Overall and metastasis-free survival was analyzed by Kaplan–Meier’s plot. The potential impact of SNHG3 on tumor progression was evaluated both in vitro and in vivo. The in vivo metastasis was monitored in the tail vein-injected mice. Our data suggested that high SNHG3 associated with unfavorable prognosis in respect to overall and metastasis-free survival. SNHG3-deficiency significantly suppressed cell proliferation and cell viability in vitro and xenograft progression in vivo. In addition, ectopic overexpression of SNHG3 promoted cell migration and invasion in vitro and lung metastasis in vivo. Mechanistically, we uncovered SNHG3 associated with EZH2 and negatively regulated MED18 expression through methylation modulation. Transient knockdown of MED18 in SNHG3-deficient cells completely rescued the tumor suppressive phenotypes in GC cells. Our data unraveled the oncogenic properties of high SNHG3 in GC, which predominantly depended on epigenetically regulated MED18.