Int J Biol Sci 2023; 19(6):1681-1697. doi:10.7150/ijbs.80873 This issue Cite
Research Paper
1. The International Peace Maternity and Child Health Hospital, School of Medicine, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200030, China.
2. Shanghai Key Laboratory of Embryo Original Diseases, Shanghai 200030, China.
3. Key Laboratory of Animal Models and Human Disease Mechanisms of Chinese Academy of Sciences & Yunnan Province, Kunming Institute of Zoology, Kunming, Yunnan 650223, China.
4. Department of Pathology, Cancer Hospital of China Medical University, Shenyang, Liaoning 110042, China.
5. Kunming Medical University, Kunming 650101, China.
6. Department of Neurosurgery, the First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou 450052, China.
‡ These authors contributed equally to this work.
Gliomas are the most aggressive type of malignant brain tumors. Recent studies have demonstrated that the existence of glioma stem cells (GSCs) is critical for glioma recurrence, metastasis, and chemo- or radio-therapy resistance. Temozolomide (TMZ) has been used as an initial therapy for gliomas. However, the overall survival time is still limiting due to the lack of effective targets and treatment options. Therefore, identifying novel biomarkers for gliomas, especially for GSCs, is important to improve the clinical outcome in the future. In this study, we identify a human-specific long non-coding RNA (lncRNA, ENSG00000250377), termed GSCAR (glioma stem cell associated lncRNA), which is highly expressed in glioma cancerous tissues and cell lines. We reveal that GSCAR positively correlates with tumor grade. Glioma patients with GSCAR high expression exhibit shortened overall survival time, compared to patients with GSCAR low expression. Furthermore, we show that GSCAR knockdown by shRNAs or antisense oligonucleotide (ASO) reduces tumor cell proliferation, migration and xenograft tumor formation abilities. Mechanistic study shows that GSCAR acts as a ceRNA (competing endogenous RNA) for miR-6760-5p to promote the expression of oncogene SRSF1 (serine and arginine rich splicing factor 1). In addition, GSCAR mediates the protein complex formation between DHX9 (DExH-Box helicase 9) and IGF2BP2 (insulin-like growth factor 2 mRNA-binding protein 2), leading to the stabilization of SOX2 (sex-determining region Y-box 2) mRNA and then the transcriptional activation of GSCAR. Depleting GSCAR reduces SOX2 expression and GSC self-renewal ability, but promotes tumor cell responses to TMZ. These findings uncover that GSCAR/miR-6760-5p/SRSF1 axis and GSCAR/DHX9-IGF2BP2/SOX2 positive feedback loop are critical for glioma progression, which could be used as prognostic biomarkers and therapeutic targets in the future.
Keywords: GSCAR, miR-6760-5p, SRSF1, SOX2, glioma stem cells (GSCs)