Involvement of extracellular vesicle long noncoding RNA (linc-VLDLR) in tumor cell responses to chemotherapy

Kenji Takahashi, Irene K. Yan, Joseph Wood, Hiroaki Haga, Tushar Patel

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

165 Scopus citations

Abstract

Hepatocellular cancer (HCC) is a highly treatment-refractory cancer and is also highly resistant to adverse cellular stress. Although cell behavior can be modulated by noncoding RNAs (ncRNA) within extracellular vesicles (EV), the contributions of long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) are largely unknown. To this end, the involvement and functional roles of lncRNAs contained within EVs during chemotherapeutic stress in human HCC were determined. Expression profiling identified a subset of lncRNAs that were enriched in tumor cell-derived vesicles released from two different cell lines. Of these, lincRNA-VLDLR (linc-VLDLR) was signifi cantly upregulated in malignant hepatocytes. Exposure of HCC cells to diverse anticancer agents such as sorafenib, camptothecin, and doxorubicin increased linc-VLDLR expression in cells as well as within EVs released from these cells. Incubation with EVs reduced chemotherapy-induced cell death and also increased linc-VLDLR expression in recipient cells. RNAi-mediated knockdown of linc-VLDLR decreased cell viability and abrogated cell-cycle progression. Moreover, knockdown of VLDLR reduced expression of ABCG2 (ATP-binding cassette, subfamily G member 2), whereas overexpression of this protein reduced the effects of VLDLR knockdown on sorafenib-induced cell death. Here, linc-VLDLR is identified as an EV-enriched lncRNA that contributes to cellular stress responses.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)1377-1387
Number of pages11
JournalMolecular Cancer Research
Volume12
Issue number10
DOIs
StatePublished - Oct 1 2014

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Molecular Biology
  • Oncology
  • Cancer Research

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