PSMC2 is overexpressed in glioma and promotes proliferation and anti-apoptosis of glioma cells.

BACKGROUND: This study aims to investigate the effect of PSMC2 expression on the clinical prognosis of glioma patients and its molecular mechanism. METHODS: TCGA multi-tumor screening and survival analysis were combined to explore the differential expression of PSMC2 in multi-tumor. PSMC2 expression in glioma and normal tissues was detected by Western blot and RT-qPCR. Kaplan-Meier survival curve was used to visualize the effect of PSMC2 expression on the overall survival rate and disease-free survival rate of patients with glioma. The highly expressed cell line U343MG was selected to construct a PSMC2 knockdown model by siRNA transfection, and the effect of PSMC2 knockdown on cell proliferation ability was evaluated by CCK-8 assay. Gene-set enrichment analysis of PSMC2 co-expression genes was carried out to predict the molecular mechanism of their regulation of tumor cell phenotypes, and the analysis results were verified by flow cytometry and Western blot. RESULTS: Through broad-spectrum screening of 31 kinds of tumors, we found that PSMC2 was upregulated in most tumors, but PSMC2 was most significantly overexpressed in gliomas and correlated with poor prognosis in glioma patients. The results of Western blot and qRT-PCR showed that PSMC2 was significantly overexpressed in glioma tissues. Further survival analysis revealed that the overall survival and disease-free survival of patients with low PSMC2 expression were significantly better than that of patients with high PSMC2 expression. The proliferation of U343MG cells was significantly inhibited after PSMC2 knockdown. Enrichment analysis of PSMC2 co-expression genes indicated that PSMC2 affected the apoptosis process. The expression of apoptosis-related proteins also significantly changed following PSMC2 knockdown. CONCLUSIONS: PSMC2 promotes the proliferation of glioma cells and inhibits the apoptosis, which is expected to be a potential therapeutic target for glioma.

Circular RNA circ_0020123 promotes non-small cell lung cancer progression by acting as a ceRNA for miR-488-3p to regulate ADAM9 expression.

Circular RNAs (circRNAs) is a class of non-coding RNA with important functions in tumor development and progression. In the previous study, circ_0020123 was found to be an elevated circRNA in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) tissues screened by high-throughput sequencing. In the current work, we uncovered the clinical significance, biological functions and mechanism of circ_0020123 in NSCLC. The expression profile of circ_0020123 was measured by RT-qPCR. Correlations between circ_0020123 expression and patients' clinical features were evaluated. Cell viability, apoptosis, migration and invasion were detected by cell counting kit-8 (CCK-8), flow cytometric and transwell assay, respectively. Bioinformatics database and luciferase reporter gene assays were utilized to identify the mechanisms of circ_0020123. The results revealed elevation of circ_0020123 in tissue specimens and cells than the nontumorous tissues and 16HBE, separately. The enhancement of circ_0020123 in tumor tissues correlated with positive lymph node metastasis, advanced TNM stages, and adverse prognosis for NSCLC patients. Functionally, silencing of circ_0020123 distinctly suppressed the growth, migration and invasion and inhibited the apoptosis of A549 cells. On the contrary, when circ_0020123 expression was ectopically expressed, the above effects were significantly strengthened in H1299 cell line. For the mechanism exploration, circ_0020123 could sponge miR-488-3p to release its inhibition on ADAM9 expression. Moreover, the functional role of circ_0020123 is partly dependent on its regulation of ADAM9 proved by rescue assays. Taken together, our findings provide the possibility that circ_0020123 may be a new target for NSCLC prognosis prediction and therapy.