LncRNA serves as a competing endogenous RNA of to upregulate in papillary thyroid carcinoma.

Objective: has been characterized as an oncogenic long non-coding RNA (lncRNA) in several cancers including papillary thyroid cancer (PTC), but its role in PTC has not been fully elucidated. Considering the critical role of lncRNAs in cancer biology, further functional analysis of in PTC may provide novel insights into PTC management.

Subjects And Methods: Paired tumor and non-tumor tissues were collected from 63 papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC) patients. Expression levels of and in tissue samples were analyzed by qRT-PCR. Cell transfection was performed to explore the interactions among and . Cell proliferation assay was performed to evaluate the effects of and on cell proliferation.

Results: accumulated to high levels in PTC tissues and was affected by clinical stage. showed a positive correlation with across PTC tissues. RNA interaction prediction showed that could bind to , which can directly target . and showed no regulatory role regulating the expression of each other, but overexpression of upregulated and enhanced cell proliferation. In contrast, overexpression of miR-218 downregulated and attenuated cell proliferation. In addition, miR-218 suppressed the role of in regulating the expression of and cell proliferation.

Conclusion: may serve as a competing endogenous RNA of to upregulate in PTC, thereby promoting cell proliferation. The pathway characterized in the present study might serve as a potential target to treat PTC.