Long Noncoding RNA SNHG1 Regulates LMNB2 Expression by Sponging miR-326 and Promotes Cancer Growth in Hepatocellular Carcinoma

Wentao Mu; Lingyu Guo; Yang Liu; Hui Yang; Shanglei Ning; Guoyue Lv

doi:10.3389/fonc.2021.784067

Long Noncoding RNA SNHG1 Regulates LMNB2 Expression by Sponging miR-326 and Promotes Cancer Growth in Hepatocellular Carcinoma

Front Oncol. 2021 Nov 30:11:784067. doi: 10.3389/fonc.2021.784067. eCollection 2021.

Authors

Wentao Mu^{1

2}, Lingyu Guo³, Yang Liu⁴, Hui Yang⁵, Shanglei Ning², Guoyue Lv¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Hepatobiliary and Pancreatic Surgery, The First Hospital of Jilin University, Changchun, China.
² Department of Hepatobiliary Surgery, General Surgery, Qilu Hospital of Shandong University, Jinan, China.
³ Department of Urology, Second Affiliated Hospital of Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an, China.
⁴ Department of Hepatobiliary Surgery, Taian City Central Hospital of Shandong Province, Tai'an, China.
⁵ Department of Colorectal and Anal Surgery, The First Affiliated Hospital of Shandong First Medical University, Jinan, China.

Abstract

Objective: The purpose of the study is to explore the potential competing endogenous RNA (ceRNA) network and investigate the molecular mechanism of long noncoding RNA (lncRNA) small nucleolar RNA host gene 1 (SNHG1) in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) development.

Methods: By analyzing the data of HCC in The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database, we included differentially expressed lncRNA and microRNA (miRNA) profiles and constructed ceRNA networks related to the prognosis of HCC patients. qRT-PCR, Western blotting, 3-(4,5-Dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide (MTT), transwell assay, and the nude mouse model were employed to test the effects of SNHG1 and LMNB2 on tumor proliferation and growth in vitro and in vivo.

Results: In the study, we identified 115 messenger RNAs (mRNAs), 12 lncRNAs, and 37 miRNAs by intersecting differentially expressed genes (DEGs) in TCGA and StarBase databases. Then, SNHG1-miR-326-LMNB2 pathway came into notice after further survival analysis and hub gene screening. Our results showed that SNHG1 expression was upregulated significantly in HCC tissues and cell lines. Downregulation of both LMNB2, the target of miR-326 in HCC, and SNHG1 inhibited tumor proliferation and growth in vitro and in vivo. Furthermore, SNHG1 could regulate LMNB2 expression through binding to miR-326 in HCC cell lines.

Conclusion: SNHG1 is a promising prognostic factor in HCC, and the SNHG1-miR-326-LMNB2 axis may be a potential therapeutic target for HCC.

Keywords: LMNB2; SNHG1; bioinformatics; hepatocellular carcinoma; lncRNA; miR-326; microRNA.