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LncRNA-IUR up-regulates PTEN by sponging miR-21 to regulate cancer cell proliferation and apoptosis in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma

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Abstract

Backgrounds

Imatinib-up-regulated lncRNA (lncRNA-IUR) is a recently identified tumor suppressor, while its role in ESCC is unknown. This study aimed to investigate the role of lncRNA-IUR in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC).

Methods

Between April 2011 and April 2014, the Second Hospital of Jilin University admitted a total of 98 ESCC patients, from whom the present study selected 50 cases (33 males and 17 females; 43–67 years; 54.8 ± 6.0 year). ESCC cells and transient transfections, qPCR, RNA interaction analysis, western blot, CCK-8 assay, and cell apoptosis analysis were applied.

Results

We found that IUR was down-regulated in ESCC, and low levels of IUR predicted poor survival of ESCC patients. In ESCC cells, IUR expression levels were significantly and positively correlated with PTEN mRNA. Bioinformatics analysis showed that IUR may sponge miR-21, which can target PTEN. In ESCC cells, IUR over-expression led to the increased expression levels of PTEN; while miR-21 over-expression led to decreased expression levels of PTEN. IUR and miR-21 failed to affect each other. Cell proliferation and apoptosis analysis showed that IUR and PTEN over-expression inhibited cancer cell proliferation and promoted apoptosis; while miR-21 over-expression played an opposite role. In addition, miR-21 over-expression attenuated the effects of IUR over-expression on PTEN expression and cell proliferation.

Conclusion

Therefore, IUR may up-regulate PTEN by sponging miR-21 to regulate cancer cell proliferation and apoptosis in ESCC.

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Acknowledgements

We received the financial support from China medical foundation (No. 318.2204).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Thoracic Surgery, The Second Hospital of Jilin University, NO. 218 Ziqiang Street, Changchun City, Jilin Province, 130041, People’s Republic of China

    Bin Wang, Peiyan Hua, Jindong Li & Yan Zhang

  2. Department of Anesthesiology, The Second Hospital of Jilin University, Changchun City, Jilin Province, 130041, People’s Republic of China

    Li Zhang

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  1. Bin Wang
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  2. Peiyan Hua
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  3. Li Zhang
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  4. Jindong Li
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  5. Yan Zhang
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Contributions

BW: manuscript writing, funding acquisition, literature search; PYH, LZ, and JDL: literature search and data analysis; YZ: study design, data analysis, statistical analysis, and manuscript review. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Yan Zhang.

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Ethical statement

All procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation (institutional and national) and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1964 and later versions. Informed consent or substitute for it was obtained from all patients for being included in the study.

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The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

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Wang, B., Hua, P., Zhang, L. et al. LncRNA-IUR up-regulates PTEN by sponging miR-21 to regulate cancer cell proliferation and apoptosis in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma. Esophagus 17, 298–304 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10388-020-00724-x

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