Circ_0003747 promotes thyroid cancer progression by sponging miR-338-3p to upregulate PLCD3 expression

ABSTRACT

The circular RNAs (circRNAs) involved in competitive endogenous RNA (ceRNA) mechanism are critical modulators affecting pathogenesis of thyroid carcinoma (TC). The study’s goal was to investigate the effects of circ 0003747 on the biological progression of papillary thyroid cancer (PTC). Normal thyroid cells Nthy-ori3–1 and TC derived cell lines were used in our study. Sanger sequencing and RNase R treatment were utilized for validating the circular structure of circ_0003747. In our work, circ_0003747 was found to be highly expressed in TC cells. Circ_0003747 knockdown reduced TC cell viability, proliferation, migration, and invasion while increasing cell apoptosis. Circ_0003747 targeted and negatively regulated miR-338-3p expression. Besides, miR-338-3p interacted with PLCD3 to repress its expression. Overexpression of miR-338-3p inhibited TC cell progression, and PLCD3 reversed these effects. Furthermore, PLCD3 overexpression reversed the effects of circ_0003747 knockdown on TC cells. Additionally, the knockdown of circ_0003747 remarkably suppressed tumour size and growth, restrained PLCD3 expression and promoted miR-338-3p expression in nude mice. In conclusion, circ_0003747 facilitated the biological progression of TC by modulating the miR-338-3p/PLCD3 axis, and it may be a new target for TC treatment.

Abbreviations: TC: Thyroid carcinoma; PTC: Papillary thyroid carcinoma; CircRNAs: Circular RNAs; MiRNA: MicroRNA; EMT: Epithelial-mesenchymal transition; HCC: Hepatocellular carcinoma; PLCD3: Phospholipase C Delta 3; CeRNA: Competitive endogenous RNA

KEYWORDS:

• Thyroid carcinoma (TC)
• circ_0003747
• MiR-338-3p
• PLCD3

Acknowledgments

We would like to express our sincere gratitude to the reviewers for their constructive comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Authors’ contribution

XLD: Conceptualization; Writing-original draft; Methodology; Formal analysis;

FDX: Investigation: Funding acquisition; Project administration; Writing-review & editing;

XYL: Investigation: Funding acquisition; Project administration; Writing-review & editing.

All authors have read and approved the final version of this manuscript to be published.

Availability of data and material

All data generated or analysed during this study are included in this article. The datasets used and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Consent for publication

Not applicable. This article does not contain any studies with human participants performed by any of the authors.

Ethical approval

Our protocol was approved by the Ethics Committee of Xiangya Hospital, Central South University.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/15592294.2023.2210339.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Natural Science Foundation of Hunan Province, China (2019JJ40489)