LAUSR

Long noncoding RNA (lncRNA) OIP5‐AS1 was shown to facilitate drug resistance and metastasis in several tumors. As cancer stem cells (CSCs) have been elucidated as the origin of drug resistance and tumor progression, we speculate that lncRNA OIP5‐AS1 holds critical roles in the CSC‐like traits of lung cancer. Here, lncRNA OIP5‐AS1 was found to be highly expressed in lung cancer cell spheres. Following experiments showed that OIP‐AS1 knockdown reduced the CSC‐like traits of lung cancer spheres, while overexpression of OIP‐AS1 conferred the CSC‐like traits in lung cancer cells by performing sphere‐formation analysis, detecting stemness marker expression, and ALDH activity. Mechanistic studies revealed that lncRNA OIP5‐AS1 could increase Oct4 expression by directly interacting with Oct4 mRNA and enhancing Oct4 mRNA stability. Finally, we found that the knockdown of Oct4 could rescue the promoting effects of OIP5‐AS1 overexpression on the CSC‐like traits of lung cancer. These results demonstrate that lncRNA OIP5‐AS1 can confer lung cancer CSC‐like traits by directly interacting with Oct4 mRNA and thus increasing Oct4 mRNA stability and expression.