Abstract
The focal adhesion kinase (FAK) tyrosine kinase is activated and upregulated in multiple cancer types including small cell lung cancer (SCLC). However, FAK inhibitors have shown limited efficacy in clinical trials for cancer treatment. With the aim of identifying potential therapeutic strategies to inhibit FAK for cancer treatment, we investigated long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) that potentially regulate FAK in SCLC. In this study, we identified a long non-coding RNA LINC01089 that binds and inhibits FAK phosphorylation (activation). Expression analysis revealed that LINC01089 was downregulated in SCLC tissues and negatively correlated with chemoresistance and survival in SCLC patients. Functionally, LINC01089 inhibited chemoresistance and progression of SCLC in vitro and in vivo. Mechanistically, LINC01089 inhibits FAK activation by blocking binding with Src and talin kinases, while FAK negatively regulates LINC01089 transcription by activating the ERK signaling pathway to recruit the REST transcription factor. Furthermore, LINC01089-FAK axis mediates the expression of drug resist-related genes by modulating YBX1 phosphorylation, leading to drug resistance in SCLC. Intriguingly, the FAK-LINC01089 interaction depends on the co-occurrence of the novel FAK variant and the non-conserved region of LINC01089 in primates. In Conclusion, our results indicated that LINC01089 may serve as a novel high-efficiency FAK inhibitor and the FAK-LINC01089 axis represents a valuable prognostic biomarker and potential therapeutic target in SCLC.
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Data availability
The RIP-RNA sequencing data was available in the Sequence Read Archive (SRA) with the accession number PRJNA1002414.
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Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the National Key R&D Program of China (2019YFA0906000), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (82203459), China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (2023T160436), Guangdong Special Support Program (2021JC06Y578), the CSCO-Genecast Cancer Precision Therapy Research Fund (2019-056-ZZ), the Shenzhen Municipal Government of China (JCYJ20200109120016553, CJGJZD20200617102403009), the Sanming Project of Shenzhen Health and Family Planning Commission (SZSM202011017), Shenzhen High-level Hospital Construction Fund and the Shenzhen Institute of Synthetic Biology Scientific Research Program (ZTXM20214005), Shenzhen Portion of Shenzhen-Hong Kong Science and Technology Innovation Cooperation Zone (HTHZQSWS- KCCYB-2023060).
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XTW, XKL, LMN, and FL contributed equally to this work. XTW, XKL, FL, and LMN conducted experiments and wrote the manuscript. TG prepared and processed the clinical samples. BW, YSG, WRH, YLR, and XTW conceived the project. WRH, YLR, and BW supervised the study and revised the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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Wang, X., Li, X., Niu, L. et al. FAK-LINC01089 negative regulatory loop controls chemoresistance and progression of small cell lung cancer. Oncogene 43, 1669–1687 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41388-024-03027-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41388-024-03027-y