A potential therapeutic molecule target: lncRNA AK023507 inhibits the metastasis of breast cancer by regulating the WNT/DOCK4/β-catenin axis.

Purpose: Breast cancer (BC) has become the most common malignant tumor in women worldwide. This study was carried out to find and validate a novel molecular therapeutic target for BC.

Methods: Long non-coding RNA (lncRNA) AK023507 was selected as the study objects through microarray analysis. The function of lncRNA AK023507 was verified by various cell function experiments in vitro, subcutaneous tumorigenesis experiments, and lung metastasis model experiments in vivo. The RNA pull-down experiment and Western blot experiment were used to confirm the mechanism regulation pathway and the recovery experiment was used to verify it. TCGA datasets were used for clinical and immune function prediction analysis.

Results: In vitro cell function tests and in vivo experiments suggested that overexpression of lncRNA AK023507 inhibited the proliferation and metastasis of BC cells. The RNA pull-down experiment and Western blot analysis validated that lncRNA AK023507 interacted with the dedicator of cytokinesis 4 (DOCK4) protein. Analysis of public databases predicted that DOCK4 is a potential prognostic risk factor associated with epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) and central memory T cell (TCM) cellular immune infiltration.

Conclusions: LncRNA AK023507 inhibits the proliferation and metastasis of BC by regulating the DOCK4/β-catenin axis. This discovery will provide new potential therapeutic targets for BC.