Research Paper Volume 13, Issue 3 pp 4522—4551

Hsa_circ_0000199 facilitates chemo-tolerance of triple-negative breast cancer by interfering with miR-206/613-led PI3K/Akt/mTOR signaling

Hongchang Li1, *, , Wen Xu2, *, , Zhihua Xia3, *, , Weiyan Liu1, , Gaofeng Pan1, , Junbin Ding1, , Jindong Li1, , Jianfa Wang1, , Xiaofeng Xie4, , Daowen Jiang1, ,

  • 1 Department of General Surgery, Institute of Fudan-Minhang Academic Health System, Minhang Hospital, Fudan University, Shanghai 201100, China
  • 2 State Key Laboratory of Bioreactor Engineering and Shanghai Key Laboratory of New Drug Design, School of Pharmacy, East China University of Science and Technology, Shanghai 200237, China
  • 3 Department of General Surgery, Putuo Hospital, Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Shanghai 200062, China
  • 4 Department of General Surgery, Shuguang Hospital Affiliated to Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Shanghai 200021, China
* Equal contribution

Received: May 25, 2020       Accepted: September 28, 2020       Published: January 20, 2021      

https://doi.org/10.18632/aging.202415
How to Cite

Copyright: © 2021 Li 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

Increasing attentions have been paid to the role of circRNAs in the etiology of triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC), and we strived to figure out the association of circRNA AKT3/miRNA axis with TNBC chemo-resistance. Altogether 207 BC patients were divided into TNBC group (n=83) and non-TNBC group (n=124), and MCF-10A, MDA-MB-231, MDA-MB-468, SK-BR-3 and MCF-7 cell lines were prepared in advance. Expressions of AKT3-derived circRNAs and relevant miRNAs in the TNBC tissues and cell lines were determined by employing real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR). It was indicated that hsa_circ_0000199 expression was higher in TNBC tissues than in non-TNBC tissues, and high hsa_circ_0000199 expression was predictive of large tumor size, advanced TNM grade, high Ki-67 level and poor 3-year survival of TNBC patients (all P<0.05). Furthermore, miR-613 and miR-206 were sponged and negatively regulated by hsa_circ_0000199 (P<0.001), and PI3K/Akt/mTOR signaling was depressed by si-hsa_circ_0000199 in TNBC cell lines (P<0.01). Ultimately, miR-206/miR-613 inhibitor reversed impacts of si-hsa_circ_0000199 on PI3K/Akt/mTOR signaling, proliferation, migration, invasion, chemo-sensitivity and autophagy of TNBC cells (all P<0.01). Conclusively, silencing of hsa_circ_0000199 enhanced TNBC chemo-sensitivity by promoting miR-206/miR-613 expression and deactivating PI3K/Akt/mTOR signaling, which was conducive to improving chemotherapeutic efficacy of TNBC patients.

Abbreviations

TNBC: triple-negative breast cancer; 3-MA: 3-methyladenine; MDC: monodansylcadaverine; OD: optical density; CCK-8: cell counting-8; SDS-PAGE: sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis; PVDF: polyvinylidene fluoride; HRP: horseradish peroxidase.