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Loss of lncRNA SNHG8 promotes epithelial-mesenchymal transition by destabilizing CDH1 mRNA

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Abstract

Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) are widely involved in a variety of biological processes, including epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT). In the current study, we found that lncRNA small nucleolar RNA host gene 8 (SNHG8) was tightly correlated with EMT-associated gene signatures, and was down-regulated by Zinc finger E-box-binding homeobox 1 (ZEB1) during EMT progress. Functionally, knockdown of SNHG8 induced EMT in epithelial cells, through destabilizing the CDH1 mRNA dependent on a 17-nucleotide sequence shared by SNHG8 and CDH1. In addition, analysis with public database showed that SNHG8 tended to be down-regulated in different cancer types and the lower expression of SNHG8 predicted poorer prognosis. Taken together, our study reports a ZEB1-repressed lncRNA SNHG8 which is important for stabilizing CDH1 mRNA, thereby maintaining the epithelial status of epithelial cells.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (82022053, 81830091, 91853206, and 81972583), the National Key Research and Development Program of China (2020YFA0803403), CAMS Innovation Fund for Medical Sciences (CIFMS) (2019-I2M-5-051) and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities.

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  1. Department of Pathophysiology, Key Laboratory of Cell Differentiation and Apoptosis of Chinese Ministry of Education, State Key Laboratory of Oncogenes and Related Genes and Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences Research Unit (NO.2019RU043), Shanghai Cancer Institute, Rui-Jin Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, 200025, China

    Ping He, Cheng Zhang, Guoqiang Chen & Shaoming Shen

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  1. Ping He
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  2. Cheng Zhang
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Correspondence to Shaoming Shen.

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He, P., Zhang, C., Chen, G. et al. Loss of lncRNA SNHG8 promotes epithelial-mesenchymal transition by destabilizing CDH1 mRNA. Sci. China Life Sci. 64, 1858–1867 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11427-020-1895-2

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