scholarly journals CircACAP2 promotes cell proliferation and migration in lung adenocarcinoma via LASP1-mediated TGF‐β/Smad3 pathway

Author(s):  
Jianyu Xu ◽  
Jianli Ma ◽  
Bixi Guan ◽  
Jian Li ◽  
Yan Wang ◽  
...  

Abstract Lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD), a common malignant tumor, has led to a great number of deaths around the world. Circular RNAs (circRNAs) have been certified as essential players in the progression of diverse cancers. CircRNA ACAP2 (hsa_circ_0068568) is an oncogene in several cancers. However, the role of circACAP2 in LUAD remains unknown. This study revealed that the expression of circACAP2 was significantly elevated in LUAD tissues and cell lines, especially in the tissues of LUAD patients at advanced stage. Additionally, circACAP2 enhanced cell proliferation, migration, invasion abilities and epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) process in LUAD. Moreover, miR-342-3p interacted with circACAP2 in LUAD cells. Importantly, we found that miR-342-3p targeted LIM and SH3 protein 1 (LASP1), and circACAP2 positively regulated LASP1 expression by competing for miR-342-3p in LUAD. Further, it was confirmed that circACAP2 promoted the malignant behaviors and stimulated the activation of TGF-β/Smad3 pathway in LUAD by modulating the miR-342-3p/LASP1 axis. To conclude, the molecular regulatory mechanism of circACAP2 in LUAD was under discussion in the current study. The findings revealed that circACAP2 facilitated malignant phenotypes in LUAD via the activation of the TGF‐β/Smad3 pathway.

Pharmaceutics ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (8) ◽  
pp. 1234
Author(s):  
Mauricio Reyna-Jeldes ◽  
Erwin De la Fuente-Ortega ◽  
Daniela Cerda ◽  
Erandi Velázquez-Miranda ◽  
Katherine Pinto ◽  
...  

Gastric cancer (GC) is a major health concern worldwide, presenting a complex pathophysiology that has hindered many therapeutic efforts so far. In this context, purinergic signaling emerges as a promising pathway for intervention due to its known role in cancer cell proliferation and migration. In this work, we explored in more detail the role of purinergic signaling in GC with several experimental approaches. First, we measured extracellular ATP concentrations on GC-derived cell lines (AGS, MKN-45, and MKN-74), finding higher levels of extracellular ATP than those obtained for the non-tumoral gastric cell line GES-1. Next, we established the P2Y2 and P2X4 receptors (P2Y2R and P2X4R) expression profile on these cells and evaluated their role on cell proliferation and migration after applying overexpression and knockdown strategies. In general, a P2Y2R overexpression and P2X4R downregulation pattern were observed on GC cell lines, and when these patterns were modified, concomitant changes in cell viability were observed. These modifications on gene expression also modified transepithelial electrical resistance (TEER), showing that higher P2Y2R levels decreased TEER, and high P2X4R expression had the opposite effect, suggesting that P2Y2R and P2X4R activation could promote and suppress epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT), respectively. These effects were confirmed after treating AGS cells with UTP, a P2Y2R-agonist that modified the expression patterns towards mesenchymal markers. To further characterize the effects of P2Y2R activation on EMT, we used cDNA microarrays and observed that UTP induced important transcriptional changes on several cell processes like cell proliferation induction, apoptosis inhibition, cell differentiation induction, and cell adhesion reduction. These results suggest that purinergic signaling plays a complex role in GC pathophysiology, and changes in purinergic balance can trigger tumorigenesis in non-tumoral gastric cells.


2019 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Xin Zhao ◽  
Ronghang Li ◽  
Qian Wang ◽  
Minfei Wu ◽  
Yanbing Wang

Abstract Background Carboxypeptidase X, M14 family member 2 (CPXM2), has been associated with several human developmental disorders. However, whether CPXM2 is involved in oncogenesis or tumor progression remains unclear. Currently, the clinical relevance and function of CPXM2 in human osteosarcoma were investigated. Materials and methods The expression of CPXM2 in osteosarcoma cell lines and tissues were explored by immunohistochemistry and western blotting assays. A eukaryotic expression plasmid was transfected into fetal osteoblast cells to overexpress CPXM2 and the endogenous CPXM2 in osteosarcoma cells was silenced through an RNA interference (RNAi) method transfection. These transfections were validated via western blotting, and the expression levels of several key molecules involved in the epithelial mesenchymal transition was also determined via western blotting. The expression levels of CPXM2 in a fetal osteoblast cell line with CPXM2 overexpressing and an osteosarcoma CPXM2-knockout cell line was confirmed via reverse transcription-quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR), western blotting and immunofluorescence. The malignant phenotype of osteosarcoma cells was indicated by the cholecystokinin octapeptide, colony formation assay, scratch wound healing assay, and Transwell® migration assay. Results We found that CPXM2 was overexpressed in osteosarcoma and that the overexpression was associated with an unfavorable prognosis and tumor node metastasis staging. The knockdown of CPXM2 in cultured osteosarcoma cells significantly impeded cell proliferation and migration. In addition, the upregulation of CPXM2 in fetal osteoblast cells significantly promoted cell proliferation and migration. Besides, western blotting results revealed that several key molecules involved in the epithelial mesenchymal transition (EMT) were regulated by CPXM2. Conclusion Taken together, these results imply an active role for CPXM2 in promoting tumor aggressiveness via epithelial to mesenchymal transition (EMT) modulation in osteosarcoma.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Huojian Shen ◽  
Hongyi Zhu ◽  
Yuanwen Chen ◽  
Zhiyong Shen ◽  
Weiqing Qiu ◽  
...  

AbstractGastric cancer (GC) is a common type of tumor that is characterized with high metastatic rate. In recent years, increasing studies have indicated that lncRNAs are involved in the regulation on cancer cell proliferation and migration. However, the functional role of long intergenic non-protein coding RNA 1559 (LINC01559) in GC is still unclear. In this study, we applied quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR) and examined that LINC01559 expression was significantly enhanced in GC cells. Functional assays such as EdU, colony formation, JC-1 and transwell assays displayed that silencing LINC01559 inhibited cell proliferation and migration while promoted cell apoptosis in GC. Besides, western blot analysis and immunofluorescence assays examined the expression of factors related to epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) and indicated that EMT process was blocked by LINC01559 knockdown in GC cells. Besides, LINC01559 silencing inhibited tumor growth in vivo. In addition, Chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP) assays demonstrated that zinc finger E-box binding homeobox 1 (ZEB1) served as a transcription factor to combine with LINC01559 promoter and activated the expression of LINC01559 in GC cells. In return, LINC01559 recruited insulin like growth factor 2 mRNA binding protein 2 (IGF2BP2) to stabilize ZEB1 mRNA to up-regulate ZEB1 in GC cells. In short, the findings in this research might provide a novel target for GC treatment.


2021 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Md Zahirul Islam Khan ◽  
Helen Ka Wai Law

BackgroundColorectal cancer (CRC) is the third most common cancer worldwide. Many recent studies have demonstrated that different long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) are involved in the initiation, advancement, and metastasis of many cancers including CRC. Cancer susceptibility candidate 9 (CASC9) is an lncRNA that has been reported in many cancers, but its role in CRC is poorly understood. In this study, we aimed to examine the expression of CASC9 in CRC cell lines and to determine the mechanism of action of CASC9 in CRC carcinogenesis.MethodsThe expression of CASC9 in CRC tissues was compared with normal samples from publicly available datasets in The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and The Encyclopedia of RNA Interactomes (ENCORI). CASC9 expression was further verified in four CRC cell lines (DLD1, HT-29, SW480, and HCT-116) and normal colorectal cell line (CCD-112CoN) by real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR). After gene silencing in HCT-116 and SW480, Cell Counting Kit-8 assay, clonogenic assay, and wound healing assay were performed to evaluate cell proliferation, viability, and migration index of cells. Western blotting was used to explore the key pathways involved.ResultsCASC9 was significantly upregulated as analyzed from both public datasets TCGA and ENCORI where its overexpression was associated with poor survival of CRC patients. Similarly, CASC9 was significantly overexpressed in the CRC cell lines compared with normal cells studied. The silencing of CASC9 in HCT-116 and SW480 attenuated cell proliferation and migration significantly. Furthermore, pathways investigations showed that silencing of CASC9 significantly induced autophagy, promoted AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) phosphorylation, inhibited mTOR and AKT signaling pathways, and altered epithelial–mesenchymal transition (EMT) marker protein expression.ConclusionWe demonstrated that silencing of CASC9 contributes to the reduced CRC cell proliferation and migration by regulating autophagy and AKT/mTOR/EMT signaling. Therefore, CASC9 plays an important role in carcinogenesis, and its expression may act as a prognostic biomarker and a potential therapeutic target of CRC management.


2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 ◽  
pp. 1-9
Author(s):  
Xue-Mei Wan ◽  
Xue-Lei Zhou ◽  
Yong-Jun Du ◽  
Hui Shen ◽  
Zhengxia Yang ◽  
...  

Threonine aspartase 1 (TASP1) was reported to function in the development of cancer. However, the regulatory mechanism of TASP1 in gastric cancer (GC) remains unclear. In this study, we determined the expression of TASP1 in tissues of GC patients, GC cells by qRT-PCR, and western blot and assessed the relationship between TASP1 and GC cell proliferation and migration via CCK-8 and transwell assay. It was found that the expression of TASP1 in GC tissues or GC cell lines was significantly higher than that in normal adjacent tissues or normal cells. The proliferation and migration of GC cells were inhibited upon TASP1 knockdown. Mechanism investigation revealed that TASP1 promoted GC cell proliferation and migration through upregulating the p-AKT/AKT expression. TASP1 induced GC cell migration via the epithelial -mesenchymal transition (EMT) pathway. In conclusion, TASP1 promotes GC progression through the EMT and AKT/p-AKT pathway, and it may serve as a new potential biomarker and therapeutic target for GC.


2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ye Qian ◽  
Yan Zhang ◽  
Haoming Ji ◽  
Yucheng Shen ◽  
Liangfeng Zheng ◽  
...  

Abstract Background Lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD) is one of the most common cancers with high morbidity and mortality worldwide. Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) serve as tumor promoters or suppressors in the development of various human malignancies, including LUAD. Although long intergenic non-protein coding RNA 1089 (LINC01089) suppresses the progression of breast cancer, its mechanism in LUAD requires further exploration. Thus, we aimed to investigate the underlying function and mechanism of LINC01089 in LUAD. Methods The expression of LINC01089 in LUAD and normal cell lines was detected. Functional assays were applied to measure cell proliferation, apoptosis and migration. Besides, mechanism experiments were employed for assessing the interplay among LINC01089, miR-301b-3p and StAR related lipid transfer domain containing 13 (STARD13). Data achieved in this study was statistically analyzed with Student’s t test or one-way analysis of variance. Results LINC01089 expression was significantly down-regulated in LUAD tissues and cells and its overexpression could reduce cell proliferation and migration. Moreover, LINC01089 could regulate STARD13 expression through competitively binding to miR-301b-3p in LUAD. Additionally, rescue assays uncovered that STARD13 depletion or miR-301b-3p overexpression could countervail the restraining effect of LINC01089 knockdown on the phenotypes of LUAD cells. Conclusion LINC01089 served as a tumor-inhibitor in LUAD by targeting miR-301b-3p/STARD13 axis, providing an innovative insight into LUAD therapies. Trial registration Not applicable.


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