circ-PSD3 promoted proliferation and invasion of papillary thyroid cancer cells via regulating the miR-7-5p/METTL7B axis

Abstract

Papillary thyroid cancer (PTC) is a common tumor malignancy of the endocrine system worldwide. Recently, circular RNAs (circRNAs) have been reported to participate in diverse pathological processes, especially in tumorigenesis. However, the functional role and mechanism of circRNA pleckstrin and Sec7 domain containing 3 (circ-PSD3) in PTC are still unclear. In this study, qRT-PCR results showed that circ-PSD3 was significantly upregulated in PTC tissues and cell lines. Meanwhile, circ-PSD3 overexpression was positively associated with larger tumor size, TNM stage, and lymph node metastasis. Knockdown of circ-PSD3 suppressed the proliferation and invasion of PTC cells. Besides, circ-PSD3 interacted with miR-7-5p to reduce its expression, and methyltransferase like 7B (METTL7B) was verified as a target gene of miR-7-5p. Functionally, inhibition of circ-PSD3 impeded PTC cell proliferation and invasion via targeting miR-7-5p to downregulate METTL7B expression. Taken together, silencing of circ-PSD3 hampered the proliferation and invasion of PTC cells via upregulating the inhibitory effect of miR-7-5p on METTL7B expression. Therefore, circ-PSD3 could be a potential diagnostic biomarker or molecular treatment target for PTC.

Keywords:

• Papillary thyroid cancer
• circ-PSD3
• miR-7-5p
• METTL7B

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Author contributions

FC and ZD designed the study; JZ, YW, and CY performed the experiments; JZ, ZF, YH, and PL analyzed the data; JZ and FC prepared the manuscript. FC and ZD reviewed the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by grants from the Applied Basic Research in Yunnan Province (Joint Special Project of Kunming Medical University) [Grant Number: 2019FE001(-247)] and the Scientific Research Foundation of the Department of Education of Yunnan Province [Grant Number: 2019J1278].