CircRNA CircZMYM4 inhibits the growth and metastasis of lung adenocarcinoma via the miR-587/ODAM pathway.

Circular RNAs (circRNAs) are known to regulate tumorigenesis. In this study, circRNAs microarray was used to analyze the circRNA expression in lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD) tissues, and CircRNA zinc finger MYM-type containing 4(circZMYM4) was selected for further analysis. In this study, we detected circZMYM4 expression in LUAD specimens and cell lines using RT-PCR. The expression of circZMYM4 was further verified in the GEO datasets and TCGA datasets. Gain-of-function and loss-of-function experiments were used to analyze the effects of circZMYM4 on LUAD in vivo and in vitro. The relationship between miR-587 and circZMYM4 or ODAM was predicted by bioinformatics tools and confirmed using dual-luciferase reporter assays and RNA-pull down. We found that circZMYM4 was distinctly down-regulated in LUAD tissues and cell lines. Functional assays revealed that circZMYM4 overexpression suppressed LUAD cell proliferation, metastasis and suppressed apoptosis, while miR-587 overexpression could weaken these effects. Importantly, circZMYM4 upregulated ODAM expression via sponging miR-587 to suppress LUAD progression. ODAM knockdown could reverse the repressive effect of circZMYM4 overexpression on cell proliferation, migration and invasion abilities. Overall, circZMYM4 regulates the miR-587/ODAM axis to suppress LUAD progression, which may become a potential biomarker and therapeutic target.