CircLONP2 Accelerates Esophageal Squamous Cell Carcinoma Progression via Direct MiR-27b-3p-ZEB1 Axis

Cailin Zhu; Weiyun Bi; Hongtao Li; Wen Wang

doi:10.3389/fonc.2022.822839

CircLONP2 Accelerates Esophageal Squamous Cell Carcinoma Progression via Direct MiR-27b-3p-ZEB1 Axis

Front Oncol. 2022 Jul 5:12:822839. doi: 10.3389/fonc.2022.822839. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Cailin Zhu¹, Weiyun Bi², Hongtao Li³, Wen Wang^{1

4}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Thoracic Surgery, The First Affiliated Hospital of Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an, China.
² Department of Clinical Skills Training Center, XiJing Hospital, The Fourth Military Medical University, Xi'an, China.
³ Department of General Surgery, General Hospital of Lanzhou PLA, Lanzhou, China.
⁴ Department of General Surgery, People's Hospital of Tongchuan, Tongchuan, China.

Abstract

Circular RNAs (circRNAs) are important mediators in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) carcinogenesis. We aim to explore the functions and mechanisms of circLONP2 in ESCC progression. The circLONP2 level was evaluated in ESCC samples and cell lines. The role and mechanisms of circLONP2 in ESCC proliferation and migration were demonstrated in vitro. We found that circLONP2 was upregulated in human ESCC and predicts poor overall survival (OS) and disease-free survival (DFS). CircLONP2 promotes ESCC aggressiveness by directly interacting with miR-27b-3p, thus upregulating the expression levels of its target gene ZEB1 by suppressing miR-27b-3p activity. Therefore, we demonstrated that circLONP2/miR-27b-3p/ZEB1 axis promotes ESCC metastasis via regulating epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT)-related proteins. CircLONP2 may serve as an oncogenic circRNA and as a prognostic biomarker in ESCC progression.

Keywords: CircLONP2; ESCC; ZEB1; miR-27b-3p; migration; proliferation.