Immortalized Human Nasopharyngeal Epithelial Cells (NP69SV40T)

**LINC00887 Promotes Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma Progression via ceRNA Mechanism **

Nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) is a prevalent malignancy with poor prognosis, necessitating deeper understanding of its molecular drivers. Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) are increasingly recognized as critical regulators in cancer progression, yet the role of LINC00887 in NPC remains unclear. Yue's team elucidated the regulatory effect of LINC00887 on NPC progression and uncover the underlying competitive endogenous RNA (ceRNA) mechanism.

LINC00887 expression was significantly elevated in 36 nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) tissues compared to adjacent normal tissues (Figure 1A) and correlated with advanced T stage, N stage, and clinical stage, but not with age, gender, relapse, or survival. High expression was also confirmed in NPC cell lines versus immortalized nasopharyngeal epithelial cells (Figure 1B).

Functional assays showed that LINC00887 overexpression in HK-1 cells markedly increased cell viability and EdU incorporation, whereas knockdown in SUNE-1 cells suppressed these proliferative phenotypes (Figures 1C-G). These findings suggest that LINC00887 acts as an oncogenic lncRNA in NPC, likely through a competitive endogenous RNA (ceRNA) network modulating tumor progression.