Circular RNA-ITCH Suppresses Lung Cancer Proliferation via Inhibiting the Wntβ-Catenin Pathway

Abstract EN

As a special form of noncoding RNAs, circular RNAs (circRNAs) played important roles in regulating cancer progression mainly by functioning as miRNA sponge.

While the function of circular RNA-ITCH (cir-ITCH) in lung cancer is still less reported, in this study, we firstly detected the expression of cir-ITCH in tumor tissues and paired adjacent noncancer tissues of 78 patients with lung cancer using a TaqMan-based quantitative real-time PCR (qRT-PCR).

The results showed that the expression of cir-ITCH was significantly decreased in lung cancer tissues.

In cellular studies, cir-ITCH was also enhanced in different lung cancer cell lines, A549 and NIC-H460.

Ectopic expression of cir-ITCH markedly elevated its parental cancer-suppressive gene, ITCH, expression and inhibited proliferation of lung cancer cells.

Molecular analysis further revealed that cir-ITCH acted as sponge of oncogenic miR-7 and miR-214 to enhance ITCH expression and thus suppressed the activation of Wnt/β-catenin signaling.

Altogether, our results suggested that cir-ITCH may play an inhibitory role in lung cancer progression by enhancing its parental gene, ITCH, expression.