Abstract:
Objective: To investigate the effects of circular RNA _000926 (circ_000926) on the proliferation and apoptosis of cervical cancer cells and its mechanism. Methods: The tumor tissues and para-cancerous tissues of 30 cervical cancer patients resected in the First Hospital of Hebei Medical University from May 2019 to September 2020 were collected. In addition, human normal cervical cell line ECt1/E6E7 and human cervical cancer cell lines (HeLa and SiHa) were also collected for this study. The expression levels of circ_000926 and miR-411-5p in tissues and cells were detected by qPCR. circ_000926 over-expression plasmids, blank plasmids, circ_000926 small interfering RNA and its negative control oligonucleotide, miR-411-5p mimic and negative control were transfected into HeLa and SiHa cells, respectively, namely pc-circ_000926 group, pc-NC group, si-circ_000926 group, si-NC group, miR-411-5p mimic group and miR-NC group. Cell viability was detected by CCK-8 assay. Cell apoptosis was detected by TUNEL assay. The targeting relationship between circ_000926 and miR-411-5p was verified by Dual-luciferase report gene assay. The protein expression levels of Ki67, BAX, Caspase-3 and Caspase-9 were detected by Western blotting assay. Results: Compared with para-cancerous tissues and normal cervical epithelial Ect1/E6E7 cells, the expression level of circ_000926 was significantly increased while the expression level of miR-411-5p was significantly decreased (all P<0.01) in cervical cancer tissues and HeLa and SiHa cells. Compared with pc-NC group, the cell proliferation viability in pc-circ_000926 group was significantly increased, the apoptosis rate and the expression of miR-411-5p were significantly decreased (all P<0.01), the protein expression of Ki67 was significantly increased(P<0.01), while the protein expression of BAX, Caspase-3 and Caspase-9 was significantly decreased (all P<0.01). Compared with si-NC group, the cell proliferation viability of si-circ_000926 group was significantly decreased (P<0.05), the cell apoptosis rate and the expression of miR-411-5p were significantly increased (all P<0.01), and the protein expression of Ki67 was significantly decreased while the protein expression of BAX, Caspase-3 and Caspase-9 was significantly increased (all P<0.01). Dual-luciferase report gene assay verified that circ_000926 negatively regulated the expression of miR-411-5p, and over-expression of miR-411-5p could reverse the effect of circ_000926 over-expression on the proliferation and apoptosis of cervical cancer cells. Conclusion: circ_000926 can promote the proliferation and inhibit the apoptosis of cervical cancer cells by adsorbing miR-411-5p.