bims-lorfki Biomed News
on Long non-coding RNA functions in the kidney
Issue of 2021–06–27
four papers selected by
Nikita Dewani, Max Delbrück Centre for Molecular Medicine



  1. BMC Cancer. 2021 Jun 24. 21(1): 727
       BACKGROUND: There is evidence that long non-coding RNA (lncRNA) is related to genetic stability. However, the complex biological functions of these lncRNAs are unclear.
    METHOD: TCGA - KIRC lncRNAs expression matrix and somatic mutation information data were obtained from TCGA database. "GSVA" package was applied to evaluate the genomic related pathway in each samples. GO and KEGG analysis were performed to show the biological function of lncRNAs-mRNAs. "Survival" package was applied to determine the prognostic significance of lncRNAs. Multivariate Cox proportional hazard regression analysis was applied to conduct lncRNA prognosis model.
    RESULTS: In the present study, we applied computational biology to identify genome-related long noncoding RNA and identified 26 novel genomic instability-associated lncRNAs in clear cell renal cell carcinoma. We identified a genome instability-derived six lncRNA-based gene signature that significantly divided clear renal cell samples into high- and low-risk groups. We validated it in test cohorts. To further elucidate the role of the six lncRNAs in the model's genome stability, we performed a gene set variation analysis (GSVA) on the matrix. We performed Pearson correlation analysis between the GSVA scores of genomic stability-related pathways and lncRNA. It was determined that LINC00460 and LINC01234 could be used as critical factors in this study. They may influence the genome stability of clear cell carcinoma by participating in mediating critical targets in the base excision repair pathway, the DNA replication pathway, homologous recombination, mismatch repair pathway, and the P53 signaling pathway.
    CONCLUSION SUBSECTIONS: These data suggest that LINC00460 and LINC01234 are crucial for the stability of the clear cell renal cell carcinoma genome.
    Keywords:  Computational biology; Gene set variation analysis; Genome instability; Long non-coding RNA; Risk signature
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1186/s12885-021-08356-9
  2. Hum Cell. 2021 Jun 25.
      Clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC) is the most common histologic subtype of renal cell carcinoma and long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) play important roles in the progression of ccRCC. In this study, we aim to explore the potential function of ITGB2-AS1 in ccRCC progression and its underlying molecular mechanism. We first explored the association between ITGB2-AS1 expression level and ccRCC prognosis. We found that the expression level of ITGB2-AS1 was significantly higher in ccRCC tumor and cell lines, and highly expressed ITGB2-AS1 was also associated with a poorer prognosis. Consistently, silencing ITGB2-AS1 inhibited proliferation, promoted apoptosis in ccRCC cell lines, and curbed the tumorigenesis in the Xenograft model, reduced tumorigenesis in a xenograft tumor growth model. We further identified and confirmed the miRNA miR-328-5p as a target of ITGB2-AS1, and miR-328-5p negatively regulated the expression of HMGA1 protein. The anti-tumor effect of silencing ITGB2-AS1 could be partially rescued by inhibiting miR-328-5p activity or overexpressing HMGA1, indicating that ITGB2-AS1 promotes the survival and progression of ccRCC by modulating miR-328-5p/HMGA1 axis. Collectively, our data demonstrated that ITGB2-AS1 expression level is positively correlated with the survival and tumorigenesis of ccRCC. As a target of ITGB2-AS1, miR-328-5p seems to function as a tumor-suppressor, and the oncogenic effect of ITGB2-AS1 is partially mediated via the miR-328-5p/HMGA1 axis.
    Keywords:  Clear cell renal cell carcinoma; HMGA1; LncRNA ITGB2-AS1; miR-328-5p
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1007/s13577-021-00563-7
  3. Front Oncol. 2021 ;11 692535
      To explore the role of metastasis-related long noncoding RNA (lncRNA) signature for predicting the prognosis of clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC) patients. Firstly, metastasis-associated genes were identified to establish a metastasis-related lncRNA signature by statistical analysis. Secondly, the ccRCC patients were grouped into high-risk or low-risk group according to the established signature, and the different pathways between the 2 groups were identified by gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA). Finally, investigations involving PCR, transwell migration and invasion assay were carried out to further confirm our findings. The metastasis-related lncRNA signature was successfully constructed according to 7-metastasis-related genes (ADAM12, CD44, IL6, TFPI2, TGF-β1, THBS2, TIMP3). The diagnostic efficacy and the clinically predictive capacity of the signature were evaluated. Most of the values of the area under the time-dependent receiver-operating characteristic (ROC) were greater than 0.70. The nomogram constructed by integrating clinical data and risk scores confirmed that the risk score calculated from our signature was a good prognosis predictor. GSEA analysis showed that some tumor-related pathways were enriched in the high-risk group, while metabolism-related pathways were enriched in the low-risk group. In carcinoma tissues, the SSR3-6, WISP1-2 were highly expressed, but the expression of UBAC2-6 was low there. Knocking down SSR3-6 decreased the ability of migration and invasion in ccRCC cells. In conclusion, we successfully constructed a metastasis-related lncRNA signature, which could accurately predict the survival and prognosis of ccRCC patients.
    Keywords:  EMT; clear cell renal cell carcinoma; lncRNA; metastasis; prognostic signature
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.3389/fonc.2021.692535
  4. Front Oncol. 2021 ;11 641833
      Most localized human renal clear cell carcinoma (ccRCC)-related deaths result from cancer recurrence and metastasis. However, the precise molecular mechanisms largely remain unknown. In recent years, an increasing number of long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) have been shown to be vital regulators of tumorigenesis. In this study, we characterized a lncRNA DUXAP9 and the upregulation of DUXAP9 was analyzed by quantitative real-time PCR in 112 pairs of localized ccRCC tumor tissues compared with adjacent normal tissues. Kaplan-Meier curves showed that patients of localized ccRCC with high DUXAP9 expression had poorer overall survival (P<0.01) and progression-free survival (P<0.05) than cases with low DUXAP9 expression. Multivariate Cox regression analysis also showed that high DUXAP9 expression was an independent risk factor for poor prognosis in localized ccRCC (p<0.05). DUXAP9 knockdown in renal cancer cells inhibited renal cancer cells proliferation and motility capacities in vitro and reversed epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT), whereas overexpression of DUXAP9 promoted renal cancer cells proliferation and motility capacities in vitro and induced EMT. Pull-down, RNA immunoprecipitation and RNA stability assays (involving actinomycin D) showed that DUXAP9 was methylated at N6-adenosine and binds to IGF2BP2, which increases its stability. DUXAP9 activate PI3K/AKT pathway and Snail expression in renal cancer cells. DUXAP9 may be useful as a prognostic marker and/or therapeutic target in localized ccRCC.
    Keywords:  Akt; EMT; N6-methyladenosine; ccRCC; lncRNA
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.3389/fonc.2021.641833