Research Paper Volume 12, Issue 10 pp 9085—9102
lncRNA ZFAS1 promotes lung fibroblast-to-myofibroblast transition and ferroptosis via functioning as a ceRNA through miR-150-5p/SLC38A1 axis
- 1 Department of Ophthalmology, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Kunming Medical University, Kunming 650101, Yunnan, China
- 2 Department of Clinical Laboratory, Yunnan Molecular Diagnostic Center, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Kunming Medical University, Kunming 650101, Yunnan, China
- 3 Department of Respiratory, The Third People’s Hospital of Kunming, Kunming 650041, Yunnan, China
- 4 Department of Respiratory, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Kunming Medical University, Kunming 650101, Yunnan, China
Received: September 24, 2019 Accepted: March 2, 2020 Published: May 26, 2020
https://doi.org/10.18632/aging.103176How to Cite
Copyright © 2020 Yang 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
Pulmonary fibrosis (PF) is a lethal fibrotic lung disease. The role of lncRNAs in multiple diseases has been confirmed, but the role and mechanism of lncRNA zinc finger antisense 1 (ZFAS1) in the progression of PF need to be elucidated further. Here, we found that lncRNA ZFAS1 was upregulated in bleomycin (BLM)-induced PF rats lung tissues and transforming growth factor-β1 (TGF-β1)-treated HFL1 cells, and positively correlated with the expression of solute carrier family 38 member 1 (SLC38A1), which is an important regulator of lipid peroxidation. Moreover, knockdown of lncRNA ZFAS1 significantly alleviated TGF-β1-induced fibroblast activation, inflammation and lipid peroxidation. In vivo experiments showed that inhibition of lncRNA ZFAS1 abolished BLM-induced lipid peroxidation and PF development. Mechanistically, silencing of lncRNA ZFAS1 attenuated ferroptosis and PF progression by lncRNA ZFAS1 acting as a competing endogenous RNA (ceRNA) and sponging miR-150-5p to downregulate SLC38A1 expression. Collectively, our studies demonstrated the role of the lncRNA ZFAS1/miR-150-5p/SLC38A1 axis in the progression of PF, and may provide a new biomarker for the treatment of PF patients.