Research Paper Volume 13, Issue 14 pp 18586—18605
Circular RNA circSP3 promotes hepatocellular carcinoma growth by sponging microRNA-198 and upregulating cyclin-dependent kinase 4
- 1 Department of Hepatobiliary Surgery, The First Affiliated Hospital of Chongqing Medical University, Chongqing Medical University, Chongqing 400000, China
- 2 Department of Oncology and Hematology, The People’s Hospital of Tongliang District, Chongqing 402560, China
- 3 College of Laboratory Medicine, Chongqing Medical University, Yuzhong, Chongqing 400042, China
Received: September 24, 2019 Accepted: July 14, 2020 Published: July 27, 2021
https://doi.org/10.18632/aging.203303How 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
As a new class of endogenous noncoding RNAs, circular RNAs (circRNAs), have been found to influence cell development and function by sponging microRNAs. MicroRNA (miR)-198 is downregulated in various cancers, including hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). We therefore searched for dysregulated circRNAs that could sponge miR-198 in HCC. By analyzing relevant circRNA databases (circBase, TargetScan and CircInteractome), we found that the miR-198-binding circRNA hsa_circSP3 is upregulated in HCC. CircSP3 expression correlated negatively with miR-198 expression in HCC tissues. Dual luciferase reporter assays indicated that circSP3 bound to miR-198. CircSP3 overexpression in HCC cells induced expression of cyclin-dependent kinase 4, a target gene of miR-198. Silencing circSP3 inhibited HCC cell proliferation and migration by downregulating cyclin-dependent kinase 4, whereas inhibiting miR-198 reversed those effects. In vivo experiments confirmed that circSP3 promoted xenograft tumor growth. These data suggest that circSP3 may be a novel biomarker for HCC.