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Research Paper|Volume 11, Issue 24|pp 11988—12001

CircRNA AFF4 promotes osteoblast cells proliferation and inhibits apoptosis via the Mir-7223-5p/PIK3R1 axis

Bobin Mi1, Yuan Xiong1, Lang Chen1, Chenchen Yan1, Yori Endo2, Yi Liu1, Jing Liu1, Liangcong Hu1, Yiqiang Hu1, Yun Sun3, Faqi Cao1, Wu Zhou1, Guohui Liu1
  • 1Department of Orthopedics, Union Hospital, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430022, China
  • 2Division of Plastic Surgery, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02215, USA
  • 3Department of Neurosurgery, Union Hospital, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430022, China
* Equal contribution
Received: August 31, 2019Accepted: November 18, 2019Published: December 17, 2019
https://doi.org/10.18632/aging.102524

Copyright © 2019 Mi et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Abstract

Fracture healing is a complex process involving various cell types, cytokines, and mRNAs. Here, we report the roles of the circRNA AFF4/miR-7223-5p/PIK3R1 axis during fracture healing. We found that increased expression of PIK3R1 during fracture healing is directly associated with augmented proliferation and decreased apoptosis of MC3T3-E1 cells. Furthermore, miR-7223-5p targeted PI3KR1 and inhibited MC3T3-E1 proliferation while promoting apoptosis. CircRNA AFF4 acted as a sponge of miR-7223-5p, thereby promoting MC3T3-E1 cell proliferation and inhibiting apoptosis. Local injection of circRNA AFF4 into femoral fracture sites promoted fracture healing in vivo while the injection of miR-7223-5p delayed healing. These findings suggest that CircRNA AFF4 promotes fracture healing by targeting the miR-7223-5p/PIK3R1 axis, and suggests miR-7223-5p, CircRNA AFF4, and the miR-7223-5p/PIK3R1 axis are potential therapeutic targets for improving fracture healing.