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Research Paper|Volume 12, Issue 4|pp 3936—3949

The circular RNA NT5E promotes non-small cell lung cancer cell growth via sponging microRNA-134

Lingyun Dong1,2, Jiangnan Zheng2, Yun Gao3, Xiaoting Zhou2, Weizhen Song2, Jianan Huang1
  • 1Department of Respiratory Medicine, The First Affiliated Hospital of Soochow University, Suzhou, China
  • 2Department of Respiratory Medicine, Affiliated Wujiang Hospital of Nantong University, Suzhou, China
  • 3Department of General Surgery, The Third Affiliated Hospital of Soochow University, Changzhou, China
* Equal contribution
Received: November 28, 2019Accepted: January 28, 2020Published: February 25, 2020
https://doi.org/10.18632/aging.102861

Copyright © 2020 Dong 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

The current study tested expression and potential function of circular RNA ecto-5’-nucleotidase (circNT5E) in human non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). We show that circNT5E levels are significantly elevated in human NSCLC tissues and cells, correlating with downregulation of its potential targets, miR-134, miR-422a and miR-338. In A549 and primary NSCLC cells, circNT5E shRNA inhibited cancer cell growth, proliferation and migration, whiling inducing apoptosis activation. Conversely, ectopic circNT5E overexpression promoted A549 cell progression in vitro. miR-134 is the primary target of circNT5E in lung cancer cells. RNA-Pull down assay in A549 cells confirmed the direct association between biotinylated-miR-134 and circNT6E. miR-134 levels were significantly increased in circNT5E-silenced A549 cells, but reduced with circNT5E overexpression. Forced overexpression of miR-134 mimicked circNT5E shRNA-induced actions, inhibiting NSCLC cell growth and proliferation. In contrast, miR-134 inhibition largely attenuated circNT5E shRNA-induced anti-NSCLC cell activity. Importantly, circNT5E shRNA was ineffective in miR-134-overexpressed A549 cells. Collectively, circNT5E promotes human NSCLC cell progression possibly by sponging miR-134.