Fucoidan inhibits the progression of hepatocellular carcinoma via causing lncRNA Linc00261 overexpression

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) as a main type of primary liver cancers has become one of the most deadly tumors because of its high morbidity and poor prognosis. Fucoidan is a family of natural, heparin-like sulfated polysaccharides extracted from brown algae. It is not only a widely used as dietary supplement, but also participates in many biological activities, such as anti-oxidation, anti-tumor and anti-inflammation. However, the mechanism of fucoidan induced inhibition of HCC is elusive. In our study, we demonstrated that fucoidan contributes to inhibiting cell proliferation, motility and invasion, inducing cell cycle arrest and activating apoptosis. Aberrant expression of long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) are identified to influence the progression of HCC. To address whether fucoidan inhibits HCC via switching the expression profiles of lncRNAs, we performed a high-throughput sequencing of lncRNAs in hepatocellular carcinoma cells treated with 0.5 mg/mL fucoidan. Analysis of the sequencing data, we found that 66 and 51 lncRNAs were corresponding up- and down-regulated. Linc00261 was highly expressed in fucoidan treated MHCC-97H cells. Furthermore, the results showed that knowing down Linc00261 promoted HCC cells proliferation by regulating the expression level of microRNA-552-3p. Taken together, our results indicated that fucoidan has a great potential to be a therapeutic agent against HCC by elevating the lncRNAs expression profiles.