NANOGP8 is one of the NANOG pseudogenes and is expressed together with NANOG in multiple
tumor tissues and cell lines. The biological functions of NANOGP8 in progression of
gastric cancer are unclear. In the present study, the role of NANOGP8 was investigated in
gastric cancer cells. The gathered data demonstrated that NANOG expression in both
mRNA and
protein was elevated in
gastric cancer cell lines relative to a normal gastric epithelial cell line. Downregulation of NANOGP8 inhibited cell proliferation and increased apoptosis in human gastric
carcinoma cell lines. Furthermore, silencing of NANOGP8 suppressed
tumor growth in vivo. Interestingly, it was identified that deleted in
breast cancer 1 (DBC1) expression was also markedly downregulated following NANOGP8 knockdown.
DNA microarray and dual-
luciferase assays further indicated that NANOGP8 may bind to the DBC1 promoter region and regulate DBC1 expression. Therefore, the gathered data provided evidence that NANOGP8 contributes to progression of
gastric cancer via DBC1 and may have potential translational significance.