Long Noncoding RNA ANRIL Promotes Non–Small Cell Lung
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Published OnlineFirst December 12, 2014; DOI: 10.1158/1535-7163.MCT-14-0492 Cancer Biology and Signal Transduction Molecular Cancer Therapeutics Long Noncoding RNA ANRIL Promotes Non–Small Cell Lung Cancer Cell Proliferation and Inhibits Apoptosis by Silencing KLF2 and P21 Expression Feng-qi Nie1, Ming Sun2, Jin-song Yang3, Min Xie2, Tong-peng Xu1, Rui Xia2, Yan-wen Liu2, Xiang-hua Liu2, Er-bao Zhang2, Kai-hua Lu1, and Yong-qian Shu1 Abstract Recent evidence highlights long noncoding RNAs (lncRNA) was increased in NSCLC tissues, and its expression level was as crucial regulators of cancer biology that contribute to essen- significantly correlated with tumor–node–metastasis stages and tial cancer cell functions such as cell proliferation, apoptosis, tumor size. Moreover, patients with high levels of ANRIL and metastasis. In non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), several expression had a relatively poor prognosis. In addition, taking lncRNAs' expressions are misregulated and have been nomi- advantage of loss-of-function experiments in NSCLC cells, we nated as critical actors in NSCLC tumorigenesis. LncRNA ANRIL found that knockdown of ANRIL expression could impair cell was first found to be required for the PRC2 recruitment to and proliferation and induce cell apoptosis both in vitro and vivo. silencing of p15INK4B, the expression of which is induced by the Furthermore, we uncover that ANRIL could not repress p15 ATM–E2F1 signaling pathway. Our previous study showed that expression in PC9 cells, but through silencing of KLF2 and P21 ANRIL was significantly upregulated in gastric cancer, and it transcription. Thus, we conclusively demonstrate that lncRNA could promote cell proliferation and inhibit cell apoptosis by ANRIL plays a key role in NSCLC development by associating silencing of miR99a and miR449a transcription. However, its its expression with survival in patients with NSCLC, providing clinical significance and potential role in NSCLC is still not novel insights on the function of lncRNA-driven tumorigenesis. documented. In this study, we reported that ANRIL expression Mol Cancer Ther; 14(1); 268–77. Ó2014 AACR. Introduction in the development, progression, and spread of the NSCLC is essential for the developing of specificdiagnosticmethodsand Lung cancer is the most common type of cancer and the designing of more individualized and effective therapeutic primary cause of cancer-related death worldwide (1). Non– strategies. small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) accounts for 80% of all lung Recently, studies using the great advances in genomic tech- cancer cases, represents the most prevalent class of this cancer nologies have revealed the majority of the human genome is type, and includes several histologic subtypes such as squa- transcribed, whereas only 2% of the transcribed genome codes mous cell carcinoma (SCC), adenocarcinoma and large cell for protein (5). Meanwhile, it is becoming increasingly appar- carcinoma (LCC; refs. 2, 3). Despite current advances in the ent that the large majority of genome is transcribed into treatments for NSCLC, including surgical therapy, chemother- noncoding RNAs (ncRNAs), including microRNAs and long apy, and molecular targeting therapy, the overall 5-year sur- ncRNAs (lncRNAs; ref. 6). The ENCODE Consortium has vival rate for patients with NSCLC has not been markedly elucidated the prevalence of thousands of human lncRNAs, improved over years and remains as low as 15% (4). Therefore, but only very few of them have been assigned with any biologic a greater understanding of the molecular mechanisms involved function (7). To date, studies showed that miRNAs play impor- tant roles in the posttranscriptional regulation of gene expres- sion; however, the lncRNAs counterpart of ncRNA is not well 1Department of Oncology, First Affiliated Hospital, Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, People's Republic of China. 2Department of Bio- characterized (8). Although very few are characterized in detail, chemistry and Molecular Biology, Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, LncRNAs are involved in a large range of biologic processes, 3 People's Republic of China. Department of Oncology, Nanjing First including modulation of apoptosis and invasion, reprogram- Hospital, Nanjing Medical University, People's Republic of China. ming stem cell pluripotency, and parental imprinting through Note: Supplementary data for this article are available at Molecular Cancer the regulation of gene expression by chromatin remodeling, Therapeutics Online (http://mct.aacrjournals.org/). histone protein modification, regulation of mRNA splicing, and F.-q. Nie, M. Sun, and J.-s. Yang contributed equally and are joint first authors to acting as sponges for microRNAs (9–12). this article. In the past decade, lots of evidence have linked the dysregula- Corresponding Authors: Kai-hua Lu, Department of Oncology, First Affiliated tion of lncRNAs with diverse human diseases, in particular cancers Hospital, Nanjing Medical University, Han Zhong Road 140#, Nanjing 210029, (13–15). Therefore, identification of cancer-associated lncRNAs China. Phone/fax: 25-8686-2728; E-mail: [email protected]; and Yong-qian Shu, and investigation of their molecular and biologic functions are [email protected] important in understanding the molecular biology of NSCLC doi: 10.1158/1535-7163.MCT-14-0492 development and progression. Our previous study showed that Ó2014 American Association for Cancer Research. lncRNA ANRIL was significantly upregulated in gastric cancer, 268 Mol Cancer Ther; 14(1) January 2015 Downloaded from mct.aacrjournals.org on September 27, 2021. © 2015 American Association for Cancer Research. Published OnlineFirst December 12, 2014; DOI: 10.1158/1535-7163.MCT-14-0492 ANRIL Promotes Proliferation in NSCLC and increased ANRIL promoted gastric cancer cells prolifera- cells proliferation and apoptosis partly via silencing of KLF2 tion and inhibited apoptosis by epigenetic silencing of miR99a and P21 transcription. This study advances our understanding and miR449a transcription (16). Moreover, ANRIL can bind of the role of lncRNAs, such as a regulator of pathogenesis of to and recruits PRC2 to repress the expression of p15INK4B locus, NSCLC and facilitates the development of lncRNA-directed which resulted in increased cell proliferation (17, 18). However, diagnostics and therapeutics. the ANRIL clinical significance and potential role in NSCLC development and progression is still not documented. In this study, we found that lncRNA ANRIL expression was Materials and Methods increased in NSCLC tissues compared with adjacent normal Tissue collection tissues. Its expression level was significantly correlated with We obtained 68 paired NSCLC and adjacent nontumor lung tumor–node–metastasis (TNM) stages and tumor size. More- tissues from patients who underwent surgery at Jiangsu Province over, patients with higher level of ANRIL expression had a Hospital between 2010 and 2011, and were diagnosed with relatively poor prognosis. Furthermore, we investigated the NSCLC based on histopathologic evaluation. Clinicopathologic effects of ANRIL expression on NSCLC cell phenotype in vitro characteristics, including TNM staging, were recorded. No local or and in vivo with the loss-of-function study. Moreover, we also systemic treatment was conducted in these patients before sur- showed that ANRIL could bind to PRC2 to repress KLF2 and gery. All collected tissue samples were immediately snap-frozen in P21 transcription, but not regulate P15INK4 expression in liquid nitrogen and stored at À80 C until required. Our study was NSCLC PC9 cells, which indicated that ANRIL affected NSCLC approved by the Research Ethics Committee of Nanjing Medical A 50 B 50 Low ANRIL expression High ANRIL expression 40 40 30 30 20 20 10 10 Relative ANRIL expression (fold change) (fold Relative ANRIL expression Relative ANRIL expression (fold change) (fold Relative ANRIL expression 0 0 CD 1.0 1.0 Low ANRIL expression 0.8 Low ANRIL expression 0.8 0.6 0.6 0.4 0.4 Cum. survival Cum. High ANRIL expression High ANRIL expression survival Cum. 0.2 P < 0.001 0.2 P = 0.019 0.0 0.0 .00 10.00 20.00 30.00 40.00 .00 10.00 20.00 30.00 40.00 Months after surgery PFS Months after surgery overall survival Figure 1. Relative ANRIL expression in NSCLC tissues and its clinical significance. A, relative expression of ANRIL in NSCLC tissues (n ¼ 68) compared with corresponding nontumor tissues (n ¼ 68). ANRIL expression was examined by qPCR and normalized to GAPDH expression. Results are presented as the fold change in tumor tissues relative to normal tissues. B, ANRIL expression was classified into two groups. C and D, Kaplan–Meier DFS and OS curves according to ANRIL expression levels. www.aacrjournals.org Mol Cancer Ther; 14(1) January 2015 269 Downloaded from mct.aacrjournals.org on September 27, 2021. © 2015 American Association for Cancer Research. Published OnlineFirst December 12, 2014; DOI: 10.1158/1535-7163.MCT-14-0492 Nie et al. University, China. Written informed consent was obtained from early apoptotic cells, and apoptotic cells, and then the relative all patients. ratio of early apoptotic cells were compared with control trans- fectant from each experiment. Cells for cell–cycle analysis were Cell lines stained with PI using the CycleTEST PLUS DNA Reagent Kit (BD Five NSCLC adenocarcinoma cell lines (PC9, SPC-A1, NCI- Biosciences) following the protocol and analyzed by FACScan. H1975, H1299, and H358), and one NSCLC squamous carcino- The percentage of the cells in G0–G1, S, and G2–M phase were mas cell lines (H520) were purchased from the Institute of counted and compared. Biochemistry and Cell Biology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (Shanghai, China). A549, H1975, H1299, and H520 Tumor formation assay in a nude mouse model cells were cultured in RPMI-1640; 16HBE, PC9, and SPC-A1 cells Female athymic BALB/c nude mice (4-weeks-old) were main- were cultured in DMEM (GIBCO-BRL) medium supplemented tained under pathogen-free conditions and manipulated with 10% FBS, 100 U/mL penicillin and 100 mg/mL streptomycin according to protocols approved by the Shanghai Medical o (Invitrogen, Carlsbad) at 37 C/5% CO2. All cell lines were Experimental Animal Care Commission.