Recently, circular RNAs have been shown to function as critical regulators of many human cancers. However, the circRNA mechanism in laryngeal squamous cell carcinoma (LSCC) remains elusive. Recent investigations using bioinformatics analysis revealed high expression of hsa_circ_0023305 in LSCC tissues compared to normal tissues. Furthermore, we discovered that hsa_circ_0023305 expression level was positively correlated to tumor/node/metastasis (TNM) stage as well as lymph node metastasis in LSCC. Moreover, higher hsa_circ_0023305 levels were correlated to poorer LSCC patient outcomes. Knockdown of hsa_circ_0023305 significantly inhibited LSCC cell proliferation, invasion, and migration abilities. Our team validated that hsa_circ_0023305 functioned as a miR-218-5p sponge from a mechanistic perspective, targeting the melastatin-related transient receptor potential 7 (TRPM7) in LSCC cells. TRPM7 regulates a nonselective cation channel and promotes cancer proliferation and metastasis. Our data demonstrated that miR-218-5p was downregulated in LSCC and that miR-218-5p upregulation repressed LSCC proliferation and invasion both in vivo and in vitro. Additionally, we found that hsa_circ_0023305-mediated upregulation of TRPM7 inhibited miR-218-5p and contributed to LSCC migration, proliferation, and invasion. In summary, these data propose a new mechanism by which the hsa_circ_0023305/miR-218-5p/TRPM7 network enhances LSCC progression.
We previously found that the Rho-associated kinase 1 (ROCK1) activated Cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs) to promote LSCC metastasis. Accumulating evidence indicates that pyridine nucleotide-disulfide oxidoreductase domain 1 (PYROXD1) is an oncogene; however, the crosstalk between ROCK1 and PYROXD1 in LSCC metastasis remains largely unknown. Here, we found that ROCK1 could target PYROXD1. The knockdown of ROCK1 expression reduces the expression of PYROXD1, while the knockdown of PYROXD1 expression did not alter the expression of ROCK1 indicating that ROCK1 is upstream of PYROXD1. Further, LSCC cells cocultured with PYROXD1 knocked-down CAFs exhibited lower proliferation, migration, invasion and metastasis abilities. Conversely, LSCC cells cocultured with PYROXD1-overexpressing CAFs showed opposite results. In conclusion, the crosstalk between ROCK1 and PYROXD1 regulated CAFs activation and promoted LSCC metastasis.
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