Background Nearly a half million people around the world are diagnosed with bladder cancer each year, and an incomplete understanding of its pathogenicity and lack of efficient biomarkers having been discovered lead to poor clinical management of bladder cancer. Fat mass and obesity‐associated protein (FTO) is a critical player in carcinogenesis. We, here, explored the role of FTO and unraveled the mechanism of its function in bladder cancer. Methods Identification of the correlation of FTO with bladder cancer was based on both bioinformatics and clinical analysis of tissue samples collected from a cohort of patients at a hospital and microarray data. Gain‐of‐function and loss‐of‐function assays were conducted in vivo and in vitro to assess the effect of FTO on bladder carcinoma tumor growth and its impact on the bladder carcinoma cell viability. Moreover, the interactions of intermediate products were also investigated to elucidate the mechanisms of FTO function. Results Bladder tumor tissues had increased FTO expression which correlated with clinical bladder cancer prognosis and outcomes. Both in vivo and in vitro, it played the function of an oncogene in stimulating the cell viability and tumorigenicity of bladder cancer. Furthermore, FTO catalyzed metastasis‐associated lung adenocarcinoma transcript 1 (MALAT1) demethylation, regulated microRNA miR‐384 and mal T cell differentiation protein 2 (MAL2) expression, and modulated the interactions among these processes. Conclusions The interplay of these four clinically relevant factors contributes to the oncogenesis of bladder cancer. FTO facilitates the tumorigenesis of bladder cancer through regulating the MALAT/miR‐384/MAL2 axis in m6A RNA modification manner, which ensures the potential of FTO for serving as a diagnostic or prognostic biomarker in bladder cancer.

No abstract

Metastatic disease caused by castration-resistant prostate cancer (CRPC) is the principal cause of prostate cancer (PCa)-related mortality. CRPC occurs within 2–3 years of initiation of androgen deprivation therapy (ADT), which is an important factor of influencing PCa metastasis. Recent studies have revealed that non-coding RNAs in PCa can enhance metastasis and progression, while the mechanisms are still unclear. In this study, we reported that the long noncoding RNA-LINC00963 was increased in CRPC tissues and promoted migration of PCa cells in vitro and their metastasis in vivo. High levels of LINC00963 significantly decreased tumor suppressor miR-542-3p, whose levels in metastasis tissues were low compared to those in non-metastasis tissues. LINC00963 promotes and miR-542-3p inhibits metastasis. Furthermore, the expression levels of LINC00963 and miR-542-3p were positively and negatively associated with the expression of NOP2. We demonstrated that NOP2 promoted PCa by activating the epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) pathway. For specific mechanism, dual luciferase reporter assays showed that miR-542-3p directly binds to both 3'-untranslated region (UTR) of LINC00963 and NOP2 mRNA. Taken together, our results show that LINC00963 acts as an inducer of PCa metastasis by binding miR-542-3p, thereby promoting NOP2. This axis may have diagnostic and therapeutic potential for advanced PCa.