The Long and the Short of It: NEAT1 and Cancer Cell Metabolism

Nadine E Smith; Phaedra Spencer-Merris; Archa Hannah Fox; Janni Petersen; Michael Z Michael

doi:10.3390/cancers14184388

The Long and the Short of It: NEAT1 and Cancer Cell Metabolism

Cancers (Basel). 2022 Sep 9;14(18):4388. doi: 10.3390/cancers14184388.

Authors

Nadine E Smith¹, Phaedra Spencer-Merris¹, Archa Hannah Fox², Janni Petersen¹, Michael Z Michael^{1

3}

Affiliations

¹ Flinders Health and Medical Research Institute, Cancer Program, Flinders University, Bedford Park, SA 5042, Australia.
² School of Human Sciences, School of Molecular Sciences, The University of Western Australia, Crawley, WA 6009, Australia.
³ Department of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Flinders Centre for Innovation in Cancer, Flinders Medical Centre, Bedford Park, SA 5042, Australia.

Abstract

The long noncoding RNA NEAT1 is known to be heavily dysregulated in many cancers. A single exon gene produces two isoforms, NEAT1_1 and NEAT1_2, through alternative 3'-end processing. As the longer isoform, NEAT1_2 is an essential scaffold for nuclear paraspeckle formation. It was previously thought that the short NEAT1_1 isoform only exists to keep the NEAT1 locus active for rapid paraspeckle formation. However, a recent glycolysis-enhancing function for NEAT1_1, contributing to cancer cell proliferation and the Warburg effect, has been demonstrated. Previous studies have mainly focused on quantifying total NEAT1 and NEAT1_2 expression levels. However, in light of the NEAT1_1 role in cancer cell metabolism, the contribution from specific NEAT1 isoforms is no longer clear. Here, the roles of NEAT1_1 and NEAT1_2 in metabolism and cancer progression are discussed.

Keywords: NEAT1_1; NEAT1_2; cancer; metabolism; paraspeckle.

Publication types

Review

Grants and funding

The authors are supported by the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council (GNT2012373), Tour de Cure Australia, and the Flinders Foundation. N.E.S. is supported by a Flinders Health and Medical Research Institute post-graduate award.