microRNA-21 (miRNA-21) is a well-characterized oncogenic
miRNA in human
cancers. In the present study, we found that miRNA-21 was upregulated, while
long noncoding RNA Mortal Obligate
RNA Transcript (
lncRNA MORT), which has been reported to be silenced in 16 types of
cancers, was downregulated in
tumor tissues than in adjacent healthy tissues of patients with ovarian
carcinoma. Expression of
lncRNA MORT in
tumor tissues was found to be significantly affected by
tumor size but not by
tumor metastasis. Expression levels of
lncRNA MORT and miRNA-21 were significantly and inversely correlated in both
tumor tissues and adjacent healthy tissues. Overexpression of
lncRNA MORT inhibited miRNA-21, while miRNA-21 overexpression failed to significantly affect
lncRNA MORT expression. Overexpression of
lncRNA MORT inhibited, while miRNA-21 overexpression promoted the proliferation of cells of
ovarian cancer cell lines. In addition, miRNA-21 overexpression partially reversed the inhibitory effects of
lncRNA MORT overexpression on
cancer cell proliferation. However, overexpression of
lncRNA MORT showed no significant effects on
cancer cell migration and invasion. Therefore,
lncRNA MORT was downregulated in ovarian
carcinoma and
lncRNA MORT overexpression inhibited
cancer cell proliferation, possibly by downregulating miRNA-21.