Abstract
Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the most deadly malignant cancers worldwide. Research into the crucial genes responsible for maintaining the aggressive behaviour of cancer cells is important for the clinical treatment of HCC. The purpose of this study was to determine whether the E3 ubiquitin ligase Ring Finger Protein 125 (RNF125) plays a role in the proliferation and metastasis of HCC. RNF125 expression in human HCC samples and cell lines was investigated using TCGA dataset mining, qRT‒PCR, western blot, and immunohistochemistry assays. In addition, 80 patients with HCC were studied for the clinical value of RNF125. Furthermore, the molecular mechanism by which RNF125 contributes to hepatocellular carcinoma progression was determined with mass spectrometry (MS), coimmunoprecipitation (Co-IP), dual-luciferase reporter assays, and ubiquitin ladder assays. We found that RNF125 was markedly downregulated in HCC tumour tissues, which was associated with a poor prognosis for patients with HCC. Moreover, the overexpression of RNF125 inhibited HCC proliferation and metastasis both in vitro and in vivo, whereas the knockdown of RNF125 exerted antithetical effects. Mechanistically, mass spectrometry analysis revealed a protein interaction between RNF125 and SRSF1, and RNF125 accelerated the proteasome-mediated degradation of SRSF1, which impeded HCC progression by inhibiting the ERK signalling pathway. Furthermore, RNF125 was detected to be the downstream target of miR-103a-3p. In this study, we identified that RNF125 is a tumour suppressor in HCC and inhibits HCC progression by inhibiting the SRSF1/ERK pathway. These findings provide a promising treatment target for HCC.
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Data availability
Datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
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Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank all the study investigators and staff who participated in this study.
Funding
This work was jointly supported by grants from the Natural Science Foundation of Heilongjiang Province of China (LC2018037), Outstanding Youth Training Fund from Academician Yu Weihan of Harbin Medical University (2014), Scientific Foundation of the First Affiliated Hospital of Harbin Medical University (HYD2020JQ0007, HYD2020JQ0012 and 2019L01), The National Natural Scientific Foundation of China (81100305, 81470876, and 81502605), Heilongjiang Postdoctoral Foundation (LBH-Q17097 and LBH-Z11066), and China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (2012M510990, 2012M520769, and 2013T60387).
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ZF, SK, CW and SL designed and performed experiments, analyzed data and wrote the paper; YX and HY performed experiments and analyzed the data; ZL and BY performed some of the experiments; XL and YH analyzed the data; BQ and MB provided the patient samples for clinical data analysis; YF and YZ provide assistance in the study; YW and YM initiated the study, organized, designed and wrote the paper. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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The study protocol was approved by the Ethics Committee of The First Affiliated Hospital of Harbin Medical University (2021041; 201823). All animal use and experiments were performed in strict accordance with the procedures approved by the National Cancer Institute Animal Care and Use Committee (ACUC).
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Feng, Z., Ke, S., Wang, C. et al. RNF125 attenuates hepatocellular carcinoma progression by downregulating SRSF1-ERK pathway. Oncogene 42, 2017–2030 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41388-023-02710-w
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41388-023-02710-w