Inhibition of LncRNAH19 has the effect of anti-tumour and enhancing sensitivity to Gefitinib and Chemotherapy in Non-small-cell lung cancer in vivo

Lung cancer is one of the most common malignant diseases, which ranked first in both men and women malignancies worldwide. The survival rate of non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) has been limited with distant metastasis and shortage of effective chemotherapeutics in recent years. Thus, novel therapeutic strategies for NSCLC are urgently explored. Here, we showed that inhibition of H19 effectively inhibited the progression of NSCLC. Moreover, down-regulation of H19 treatment significantly enhanced the levels of PTEN and PDCD4, while suppressed the expressions of NFIB in NSCLC. Furthermore, down-regulation of H19 combined with Gefitinib treatment significantly increased the levels of PTEN and PDCD4, while decreased the expression levels of NFIB. Moreover, the results showed that Gefitinib treatment significantly reduced the shH19-mediated miR-21 expression levels. Our results showed that down-regulation of H19 combined with Gefitinib administration significantly improved the effect of shH19 treatment alone on the progression of NSCLC, which was involved in the activation of PTEN signalling pathway in NSCLC in vivo. Therefore, these findings might indicate a novel molecular mechanism, which could provide a new potential combination of therapeutic method in NSCLC.