lncRNA AK017368 promotes proliferation and suppresses differentiation of myoblasts in skeletal muscle development by attenuating the function of miR-30c

Long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) have been reported to play diverse roles in biologic and pathologic processes, including myogenesis. We found that lncRNA AK017368 is highly expressed in skeletal muscle cells. Functional analyses showed that overexpression of AK017368 promoted proliferation and restrained differentiation of myoblasts; whereas inhibition of AK017368 had completely opposite effects in vitro. In mice, knockdown of AK017368 promoted muscle hypertrophy in vivo. RNA molecules of AK017368 acted mechanistically as competing endogenous RNAs to target micro-RNA (miR)-30c, which was supported by the results of bioinformatics analyses and dual-luciferase reporter assays. It has been shown that lncRNA AK017368 competes with trinucleotide repeat containing-6A (Tnrc6a) for miR-30c. Tnrc6a was previously reported to promote proliferation and inhibit differentiation of myoblast cells, whereas miR-30c targets the 39-UTR of Tnrc6a mRNA to weaken its function. Taken together, lncRNA AK017368 promotes proliferation and inhibits differentiation of myoblast cells by attenuating function ofmiR-30c.