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Research Paper|Volume 12, Issue 11|pp 10381—10397

High circ-SEC31A expression predicts unfavorable prognoses in non-small cell lung cancer by regulating the miR-520a-5p/GOT-2 axis

Mingming Jin1,2, Chunzi Shi1,2, Qian Hua3, Tian Li1,2, Chen Yang4, Yue Wu1,2, Licong Zhao5, Hao Yang2, Jiaqi Zhang6, Cheng Hu6, Gang Huang2,3
  • 1Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Shanghai University of Medicine and Health Sciences, Shanghai 201203, P.R. China
  • 2Shanghai Key Laboratory of Molecular Imaging, Shanghai University of Medicine and Health Sciences, Shanghai 201318, P.R. China
  • 3Department of Nuclear Medicine, Renji Hospital, School of Medicine, Shanghai Jiaotong University, Shanghai 200127, China
  • 4Department of Urology, Huashan Hospital, Fudan University, Shanghai 200040, China
  • 5China Medical University, Shenyang 110011, Liaoning, China
  • 6Experiment Center for Science and Technology, Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Shanghai 201203, China
* Co-first authors
Received: February 5, 2020Accepted: April 20, 2020Published: June 4, 2020

Copyright © 2020 Jin 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

Dysregulation of circular RNAs (circRNAs) has recently been shown to play important regulatory roles in cancer development and progression, including non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). However, the roles of most circRNAs in NSCLC are still unknown. In this study, we found that hsa_circ_0001421 (circ-SEC31A) was upregulated in NSCLC tissues and cell lines. Increased circ-SEC31A expression in NSCLC was significantly correlated with malignant characteristics and served as an independent risk factor for the post-surgical overall survival of NSCLC patients. Reduced circ-SEC31A expression in NSCLC decreased tumor cell proliferation, migration, invasion, and malate-aspartate metabolism. Mechanistically, we demonstrated that silencing circ-SEC31A downregulated GOT-2 expression by relieving the sponging effect of miR-520a-5p, which resulted in significantly reduced malate-aspartate metabolism in NSCLC cells. Taken together, these results revealed the important role of circ-SEC31A in the proliferation, migration, invasion, and metabolic regulation of NSCLC cells, providing a new perspective on circRNAs in NSCLC progression.