Research Paper Volume 13, Issue 10 pp 14185—14197
Circular RNA ITCH promotes extracellular matrix degradation via activating Wnt/β-catenin signaling in intervertebral disc degeneration
- 1 Department of Orthopaedic, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang University School of Medicine, Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, China
- 2 Department of Nephrology, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang University School of Medicine, Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, China
- 3 Department of Orthopaedic, The Fourth Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang University School of Medicine, Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, China
- 4 Guanghua Hospital Affiliated to Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Shanghai, China
Received: November 28, 2020 Accepted: March 27, 2021 Published: May 18, 2021
https://doi.org/10.18632/aging.203036How to Cite
Copyright: © 2021 Zhang 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
Intervertebral disc degeneration (IDD) is the prevailing spine disorder and is associated with musculoskeletal disease. The extracellular matrix (ECM) degradation is an essential hallmark of IDD progression. Circular RNAs (circRNAs), as crucial cellular regulators, participate in multiple pathological processes including IDD. Here, we tried to explore the effect of circITCH on the ECM degradation of IDD and the underlying mechanism. Significantly, the expression levels of circITCH were elevated in the IDD patients’ nucleus pulposus (NP) tissues relative to that of normal cases. CircITCH promoted apoptosis and decreased proliferation of NP cells. CircITCH contributed to ECM degradation, as demonstrated by increased ADAMTS4 and MMP13 expression and decreased aggrecan and collagen II expression. Mechanically, miR-17-5p could be sponged by circITCH and miR-17-5p inhibited ECM degradation by repressing SOX4 in degenerative NP cells. CircITCH could activate Wnt/β-catenin pathway by targeting miR-17-5p/SOX4 signaling. SOX4 overexpression, miR-17-5p inhibitor, or Wnt/β-catenin signaling activator LiCl was able to reverse circITCH knockdown-inhibited apoptosis and ECM degradation, and circITCH knockdown-enhanced proliferation in NP cells. Thus, we conclude that circITCH promotes ECM degradation in IDD by activating Wnt/β-catenin through miR-17-5p/SOX4 signaling. Our finding presents novel insight into the mechanism that circITCH modulates the IDD progression. CircITCH and SOX4 may serve as potential targets for IDD therapy.