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Research Paper|Volume 13, Issue 15|pp 19822—19834

Circular RNA ZNF609 drives tumor progression by regulating the miR-138-5p/SIRT7 axis in melanoma

Quan Liu1, Wei Cui1, Chao Yang2, Li-Ping Du1
  • 1Department of Plastic Surgery, Sichuan Academy of Medical Sciences and Sichuan Provincial People’s Hospital, Chengdu 610072, Sichuan, China
  • 2Department of Traditional Chinese Medicine Surgery, Sichuan Academy of Medical Sciences and Sichuan Provincial People’s Hospital, Chengdu 610072, Sichuan, China
* Equal contribution
Received: April 13, 2021Accepted: July 9, 2021Published: August 9, 2021
https://doi.org/10.18632/aging.203394

Copyright: © 2021 Liu 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

Melanoma serves as a prevailing and lethal skin malignancy with high mortality and a growing number of patients globally. Circular RNAs (circRNAs), as a type of emerging cellular regulator, are involved in the modulation of melanoma. Nevertheless, the function of circZNF609 in melanoma development remains obscure. In this study, we were interested in the effect and the underlying mechanism of circZNF609 on DNA damage during melanoma progression. The circZNF609 depletion significantly suppressed melanoma cell invasion, migration, and proliferation, and stimulated apoptosis. Meanwhile, comet assays showed that the tail length and γH2AX levels were elevated by circZNF609 depletion. Mechanically, circZNF609 sponged miR-138-5p and miR-138-5p targeted SIRT7 in the melanoma cells. The SIRT7 overexpression and miR-138-5p inhibitor could reverse circZNF609 depletion-mediated DNA damage and malignant progression in melanoma cells. Functionally, CircZNF609 promoted cell growth of melanoma in the nude mice. Consequently, we conclude that circZNF609 suppresses DNA damage and potentially enhances melanoma progression at the experimental condition by modulating the miR-138-5p/SIRT7 axis. Our finding provides new insights into the mechanism by which circZNF609 modulates the development of melanoma. CircZNF609 and miR-138-5p may be utilized as therapeutic targets for melanoma.