机构:[1]Organ Transplantation Center, the First Affiliated Hospital of Kunming Medical University, 295 Xichang Road, Kunming 650032, Yunnan Province, China昆明医科大学附属第一医院[2]Institute of Immunology, PLA, Third Military Medical University, 30 Gaotanyan St., District Shapingba, Chongqing 400038, China
Hepatitis B Virus (HBV) contributes to liver carcinogenesis via various epigenetic mechanisms. The newly defined epigenetics, epitranscriptomics regulation, has been reported to involve in multiple cancers including Hepatocellular Carcinoma (HCC). Our previous study found that HBx, HBV encodes X protein, mediated H3K4me3 modification in WDR5-dependent manner to involve in HBV infection and contribute to oncogene expression. AlkB Homolog 5 (ALKBH5), one of epitranscriptomics enzymes, has been identified to be associated with various cancers. However, whether and how ALKBH5 is dysregulated in HBV-related HCC remains unclear yet. This study aims to investigate ALKBH5 function, clinical significance and mechanism in HBV related HCC (HBV-HCC) patients derived from Chinese people.The expression pattern of ALKBH5 was evaluated by RT-qPCR, Western blot, data mining and immunohistochemistry in total of 373 HBV-HCC tissues and four HCC cell lines. Cell Counting Kit 8 (CCK8) assay, Transwell and nude mouse model were performed to assess ALKBH5 function by both small interference RNAs and lentiviral particles. The regulation mechanism of ALKBH5 was determined in HBx and WDR5 knockdown cells by CHIP-qPCR. The role of ALKBH5 in HBx mRNA N6-methyladenosine (m6A) modification was further evaluated by MeRIP-qPCR and Actinomycin D inhibitor experiment in HBV-driven cells and HBx overexpression cells.ALKBH5 increased in tumor tissues and predicts a poor prognosis of HBV-HCC. Mechanically, the highly expressed ALKBH5 is induced by HBx-mediated H3K4me3 modification of ALKBH5 gene promoter in a WDR5-dependent manner after HBV infection. The increased ALKBH5 protein catalyzes the m6A demethylation of HBx mRNA, thus stabilizing and favoring a higher HBx expression level. Furthermore, there are positive correlations between HBx and ALKBH5 in HBV-HCC tissues, and depletion of ALKBH5 significantly inhibits HBV-driven tumor cells' growth and migration in vitro and in vivo.HBx-ALKBH5 may form a positive-feedback loop to involve in the HBV-induced liver carcinogenesis, and targeting the loop at ALKBH5 may provide a potential way for HBV-HCC treatment.
基金:
the General Program of the
National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 82002586) and (No.
81960124).
第一作者机构:[1]Organ Transplantation Center, the First Affiliated Hospital of Kunming Medical University, 295 Xichang Road, Kunming 650032, Yunnan Province, China
通讯作者:
推荐引用方式(GB/T 7714):
Qu Siming,Jin Li,Huang Hanfei,et al.A positive-feedback loop between HBx and ALKBH5 promotes hepatocellular carcinogenesis.[J].BMC CANCER.2021,21(1):doi:10.1186/s12885-021-08449-5.
APA:
Qu Siming,Jin Li,Huang Hanfei,Lin Jie,Gao Weiwu&Zeng Zhong.(2021).A positive-feedback loop between HBx and ALKBH5 promotes hepatocellular carcinogenesis..BMC CANCER,21,(1)
MLA:
Qu Siming,et al."A positive-feedback loop between HBx and ALKBH5 promotes hepatocellular carcinogenesis.".BMC CANCER 21..1(2021)