HOXD3 and colorectal carcinoma: We first carried out functional experiments in vitro and found that the ectopic expression of HOXD3 could significantly reduce the repressive effects on CRC cell proliferation, colony formation, cell-cycle progression, migration and invasion mediated by HOXD-AS1 in vitro by CCK8, colony formation, scratch-wound healing and Transwell assays, respectively (Additional file 7: Figure S5b-5f).