The treatment of patients with advanced-stage
osteosarcoma represents a major challenge, with very few treatments currently approved. Although accumulating evidence has demonstrated the importance of lncRNAs in
osteosarcoma, the current knowledge on the functional roles and molecular mechanisms of
lncRNA endogenous born avirus-like
nucleoprotein (EBLN3P) is limited. At present, the expressions of EBLN3P and miR-224-5p in
osteosarcoma tissues were quantified by reverse transcription-quantitative PCR assay, and the expression of Ras-related
protein 10 (Rab10) in
osteosarcoma tissues was quantified by immunohistochemistry and western-blotting. The bioinformatics prediction software ENCORI was used to predict the putative binding sites of EBLN3P, Rab10 and miR-224-5p. The regulatory role of EBLN3P or miR-224-5p on cell proliferation, migration and invasion ability were verified by Cell Counting Kit-8, wound healing and Transwell assays, respectively. The interaction among EBLN3P, miR-224-5p and Rab10 were testified by
luciferase. The increased expression of EBLN3P and Rab10 and decreased expression of miR-224-5p were observed in
osteosarcoma tissues and cell lines. Besides, the overexpression of EBLN3P or knockdown of miR-224-5p were revealed to promote the proliferation, migration and invasion of
osteosarcoma cells. Bioinformatics analysis and
luciferase assay revealed that EBLN3P could directly interacted with miR-224-5p to attenuate miR-224-5p binding to the Rab10 3'-untranslated region. Furthermore, the mechanistic investigations revealed activation of the miR-224-5p/Rab10 regulatory loop by knockdown of miR-372-3p or overexpression of Rab10, thereby confirming the in vitro role of EBLN3P in promoting
osteosarcoma cell proliferation, migration and invasion. To the best of our knowledge, the present study is the first to demonstrate that EBLN3P may act as a
competitive endogenous RNA to modulate Rab10 expression by competitive sponging to miR-224-5p, leading to the regulation of
osteosarcoma progression, which indicates a possible new approach to
osteosarcoma diagnosis and treatment.