Rho-associated coiled-coil forming protein kinase l (ROCK1) is characterized as pivotal downstream effectors of the small GTPase RhoA and reported to participate in tumor metastasis. miR-335-5p acts as tumor suppressor microRNA and is identified to be downregulated in tumor tissues. miR-335-5p/ROCK1 axis has been demonstrated to promote cell proliferation and metastasis in gastric cancer, hepatocellular carcinoma and so on.
LINC00339 exerted oncogenesis effect on HCC progression by targeting miR-152/ROCK1, and the expression of LINC00339 was negatively correlated with miR-152 expression and positively correlated with ROCK1 expression in clinical HCC samples.
Using a luciferase reporter assay, the present study also provided the first evidence that miR‑148b directly targets Rho‑associated protein kinase 1 in HCC.