Exosomal circPVT1 promotes angiogenesis in laryngeal cancer by activating the Rap1b-VEGFR2 signaling pathway.

ABSTRACT

Laryngeal cancer (LC) is the second most common head and neck cancer and has a decreasing 5-year survival rate worldwide. Circular RNAs regulate cancer development in diverse ways based on their distinct biogenesis mechanisms and expansive regulatory roles. However, currently, there is little research on how exosomal circular RNAs are involved in the development of laryngeal cancer. Here, we demonstrated that circPVT1, a circular RNA derived from the well-studied long noncoding RNA PVT1, is correlated with disease progression in LC and promotes angiogenesis both in vivo and in vitro. Mechanistically, circPVT1 is loaded into LC cell-secreted exosomes and taken up by vascular epithelium cells. By sponging miR-30c-5p, exosomal circPVT1 promotes Rap1b expression, which dramatically enhances VEGFR2 and PI3K/AKT pathway activation, ultimately resulting in the induction of angiogenesis. Furthermore, our xenograft models demonstrated that the combination of shRNA-circPVT1 and cetuximab showed high efficacy in inhibiting tumor growth and angiogenesis. Collectively, these findings uncover a novel mechanism of exosomal circular RNA-mediated angiogenesis modulation and provide a preclinical rationale for testing this analogous combination in patients with LC.