Abstract: Objective To study the effects of metformin on the migration and invasion of non-small cell lung cancer cell line A549 through down-regulating the expression of LncRNA-H19. Methods pc-H19 overexpression plasmid was used to increase the expression of LncRNA-H19 in A549 cells.Real-time PCR was used to evaluate the overexpression efficiency of pc-H19 transfection efficiency.Transwell migration and invasion assays were used to test the effect of overexpression of H19 on the motility of tumor cells.Furthermore,the inhibitory effect of metformin on the expression of H19 in A549 cells and the motility of tumor cells were verified in vitro. Results The pcH19 overexpression vector constructed in this study can significantly up-regulate the expression of LncRNA-H19 in A549 cells.Overexpression of LncRNA-H19 can significantly promote the migration and invasion of A549 cells.40 mM metformin can significantly inhibit the expression of H19 in A549 cells,and inhibit the migration and invasion of A549 cells.Conclusion Metformin suppressed the migration and invasion of A549 cells by down-regulating H19 expression.This study suggests that H19 is one of the potential therapeutic targets for non-small cell lung cancer,and metformin exerts potential anti-tumor metastasis effect against lung cancer.

Key words: non-small cell lung cancer, LncRNA-H19, migration, invasion