LncRNA DARS-AS1 regulates microRNA-129 to promote malignant progression of thyroid cancer
Authors: J-Y Yang
Q-S Cao
W Zheng
L Cai
Y-M Shen
X Tian
G-Y Tian
Journal: European review for medical and pharmacological sciences (2019)
Discipline: PHARMACOLOGY & TOXICOLOGY
Keywords: lncRNA DARS-AS1; thyroid cancer; microRNA-129; qPCR; tumor tissues
Affiliations: Department of Otolaryngology, The Third Affiliated Hospital of Southern Medical University, Guangzhou, China. .

Abstract:  Objective: To investigate the expression of long non-coding RNA (lncRNA) DARS-AS1 in thyroid cancer, and to further investigate whether it can promote the development of thyroid cancer by regulating microRNA-129. Patients and methods: Real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) was used to detect the level of DARS-AS1 in tumor tissues and paracancerous tissues of 34 thyroid carcinomas. It was also used to analyze the relationship between the expression of DARS-AS1 and the clinical indicators of thyroid cancer and the prognosis of patients. qPCR was used to further verify the expression of DARS-AS1 in thyroid cancer cell lines. The DARS-AS1 knockdown model was constructed using lentivirus in thyroid cancer cell lines. Cell counting kit-8 (CCK-8), cell clone formation, and transwell migration assays were performed to evaluate the effects of DARS-AS1 on the biological function of thyroid cancer cells. Finally, the potential mechanism was explored by using recovery experiments and the interplay between DARS-AS1 and microRNA-129 was further studied. Results: qPCR results revealed that the level of DARS-AS1 in tumor tissues of thyroid cancer patients was remarkably higher than that in adjacent tissues, and the difference was statistically significant. Compared with patients with low expression of DARS-AS1, patients with high DARS-AS1 expression had a higher incidence of high tumor stage, distant metastasis, and a lower overall survival rate. Besides, compared with NC group, the proliferation and migration ability of shRNA-AS1 expression knockdown group sh-DARS-AS1 was remarkably decreased. qPCR results indicated that there was a negative correlation between the level of microRNA-129 and DARS-AS1 in thyroid cancer tissues. In addition, cell proliferation and migration ability in the microRNA-129 overexpression group were remarkably decreased. The recovery experiment also found that there was a mutual regulation between DARS-AS1 and microRNA-129, which together affected the malignant progression of thyroid cancer. Conclusions: DARS-AS1 level in tumor tissues of thyroid cancer was remarkably increased and was correlated with the pathological stage, distant metastasis, and poor prognosis of thyroid cancer. Moreover, DARS-AS1 could promote the proliferation and migration capabilities of thyroid cancer cells by modulating microRNA-129. 

Retracted: No

PubPeer comments:
 *[left]* Fig 3C from [Zheng et al (2019)] .  There was a significant negative correlation between the expression levels of DARS-AS1 and miR-129 in thyroid cancer tissues . *[right]* Fig 3E from [Xu et al (2019)] .  MiR-424-5p was significantly negatively correlated with the expression level of ITGB1 in NSCLC tissues. An implausible number of data points are present in both scatterplots. ![file] , 
 Figs 1C, 3D.  Kaplan Meier survival curve of thyroid cancer patients based on DARS-AS1 expression; the prognosis of patients with high expression was significantly worse than that of the bottom expression group ...  Kaplan Meier survival curve of thyroid cancer patients based on miR-129 expression . ![file] It is not possible to obtain these two pairs of survival curves by dichotomising a set of 34 survival times in two different ways. Notably, 1C shows about 55% of one half-group and 0% of the other still alive after 75 months, while 3D shows about 80% and 20% surviving. They are manifestations of Hoya s Law for J.BUOn and ERMPS...  When 40 or 50 cases of any given cancer are dichotomised into half-groups of high- or low-expression of any given nc-RNA, survival rate for one half-group or both will drop to 0% at 75 months. Other examples, from left to right: - Fig 1 from [Zang et al (2020)] - Fig 1 from [Li et al (2020)] - Fig 1, and Fig 4D, from [Cui et al (2019)] - Fig 1D from [Gao et al (2019)] . ![file] *[left]* Figure 1C from [Wu et al (2020)] . *[right]* Figs 1D, 3E from [Wu et al (2019)] . ![file] ,