Department of Gastroenterology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Xi'an Jiaotong University, 710061, Xi'an, Shaanxi, P. R. China.
Cell Death Dis. 2020 Aug 11;11(8):685. doi: 10.1038/s41419-020-02840-z.
During recent years, long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) have received focal attention due to their important function in cancer regulation. Though the relation between lncRNA SNAI3-AS1 and the development of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) has been described in our previous study, the role and the exact mechanism of SNAI3-AS1 are still unclear. In this study, qRT-PCR analysis revealed that the expression of SNAI3-AS1 was elevated and was correlated with the levels of PEG10 in HCC tissues. Through functional experiments, we determined that knockdown of SNAI3-AS1 and PEG10 inhibited the proliferation and metastasis, whereas overexpression of SNAI3-AS1 and PEG10 promoted the proliferation and metastasis of HCC cells. In addition, rescue experiments confirmed that upregulation of PEG10 partially restored cell function inhibition induced by SNAI3-AS1 knockdown. Therefore, we hypothesized that PEG10 may be regulated by SNAI3-AS1, which in turn mediates the malignant biological processes of HCC cells regulated by PEG10. Further bioinformatics analysis and mechanistic experiments showed that SNAI3-AS1 functions as a competing endogenous RNA (ceRNA) to activate PEG10 by acting as a sponge for miR-27-3p and miR-34a-5p. In summary, our study revealed that SNAI3-AS1 is a tumor regulator of PEG10 in the progression of HCC, and may contribute to the improvement of HCC diagnosis and therapy.
近年来,长非编码 RNA(lncRNA)因其在癌症调控中的重要功能而受到关注。虽然我们之前的研究已经描述了 lncRNA SNAI3-AS1 与肝细胞癌(HCC)发展之间的关系,但 SNAI3-AS1 的作用和确切机制仍不清楚。在这项研究中,qRT-PCR 分析显示 SNAI3-AS1 的表达升高,并与 HCC 组织中 PEG10 的水平相关。通过功能实验,我们确定敲低 SNAI3-AS1 和 PEG10 抑制了 HCC 细胞的增殖和转移,而过表达 SNAI3-AS1 和 PEG10 则促进了 HCC 细胞的增殖和转移。此外,挽救实验证实,上调 PEG10 部分恢复了 SNAI3-AS1 敲低引起的细胞功能抑制。因此,我们假设 PEG10 可能受 SNAI3-AS1 调控,进而介导 PEG10 调节的 HCC 细胞恶性生物学过程。进一步的生物信息学分析和机制实验表明,SNAI3-AS1 通过充当 miR-27-3p 和 miR-34a-5p 的海绵,作为竞争内源性 RNA(ceRNA)来激活 PEG10。总之,我们的研究揭示了 SNAI3-AS1 是 HCC 进展中 PEG10 的肿瘤调节剂,可能有助于改善 HCC 的诊断和治疗。