Long non-coding RNA UCA1 upregulates KIF20A expression to promote cell proliferation and invasion via sponging miR-204 in cervical cancer
Authors: Shuai Liu
Qinghua Zhu
Yibo Shao
Jianzhou Meng
Qing He
Zhenlin Wei
Qiangcheng Zeng
Journal: Cell Cycle (2020)
Discipline: MOLECULAR BIOLOGY & GENETICS
Keywords: KIF20A; LncRNA UCA1; cervical cancer; miR-204.
Affiliations: Shandong Key Laboratory in University of Functional Bioresource Utilization, College of Life Science, Dezhou University, Dezhou City, Shandong Province, PR. China, Institute of Medicinal Biotechnology, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College, Beijing City, PR. China

Abstract:  Cervical cancer is a female cancer with the second highest motility over the world. It is urgent to find new therapeutic methods based on long-coding RNAs and microRNAs. UCA1 was proved to be related with many human cancer types, but limited researches have been performed for the inner associations between UCA1 and cervical cancer. Eighty females who were undergoing surgeries were recruited for study in our research. We took the cervical cancer tissues and cells from them. Massive experiments and analysis were conducted to investigate the gene expressions and protein expressions about UCA1, KIF20A, and miR-204 in normal cells and cancer cells. The techniques contain real-time PCR, migration/invasion assay, western blot, in vivo experiments, and so on.We found that UCA1 expression was greatly up-regulated in cervical cancer tissues and cell lines. Our in vitro assays revealed that the suppressing of UCA1 could reduce cervical cancer cells proliferation, migration, and invasion. In addition, we found that lncRNA UCA1 could sponge miR-204 and promote the proliferation and invasion of cervical cancer cells via the up-regulating of KIF20A expression. As a result, the inhibiting of UCA1 could lower cervical cancer (CC) cells growth rate in vivo.Our results identified that UCA1 could serve as an oncogene in cervical cancer cell progression through the modulating of miR-204/KIF20A axis. It gives novel insights to the searching of novel therapeutic methods for cervical cancer. 

Retracted: No

PubPeer comments:
 Fig 5a.  Tumors collected from mice were exhibited . ![file] Was this part of the study performed by an outside laboratory? If so, this would explain how the same ruler (with the same scratches and markings) provides the scale in images of tumors from multiple teams of researchers: ![] Clockwise from upper left: - Fig 9A from [Pang et al (2019)] .  A representative image of the [BGC-823] tumor xenografts obtained from the agomir-628 and agomir-NC groups. Rotated through 90 deg to facilitate comparison. *UPDATE: **Retracted**, [24 September 2021] .* - Fig 7B from [Yan et al (2019)] .  The representative images of the [HCT116] tumor xenografts obtained from the agomir-629 group and the agomir-NC group. *UPDATE: **Retracted** [29 October 2021] .* - Fig 7A from [Yang et al (2019)] .  Representative images of the tumor xenografts 4 weeks after inoculation with U251 cells expressing miR-559 mimics or miR-NC. Rotated through 90 deg. *UPDATE: **Retracted**, [22 September 2021] .* - Fig 8A from [Li, Li Sun (2019)] .  Photographs of tumor xenografts derived from agomir-876u2013 and agomir-NCu2013 transfected MCF-7 cells . *UPDATE: **Retracted** [15 September 2021] .* Fig 10A from  LINC01224 accelerates malignant transformation via MiRu2010193au20105p CDK8 axis in gastric cancer ([Sun et al 2021] ).  Tumor xenograft in mice was used to detect the effect of LINC01224 on tumor growth . ![file] , 
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