SNHG11 is highly expressed in GBM tissues and confers poor prognosis
We firstly analyzed SNHG11 expression levels in glioma by TCGA and CGGA, and the results showed that the levels of SNHG11 were significantly increased with the increase of tumor grade (Figure 1A and B). Meanwhile, we analyzed SNHG11 levels in glioma samples and got the similar results compared with analysis results of public database (Figure 1D). In addition, higher expression of SNHG11 indicated worse overall survival (OS) than low levels of SNHG11 (Figure 1C). In addition, SNHG11 expression levels were significantly higher in recurrent GBM samples than primary GBM samples (Figure 1E). Survival analysis results suggested that high SNHG11 levels indicated poor response to TMZ (Figure 1F).
Together, these analysis results suggest that SNHG11 may be a key regulator of glioma progression, including TMZ resistance.
SNHG11 confers resistance to TMZ
As MGMT is the key element mediating TMZ resistance, the role of SNHG11 in different GBM cells with different MGMT status (Supplementary Figure 1A) was analyzed. Firstly, U87, T98G, pGBM1 and pGBM2 cells were transfected with sh-ctrl or sh-SNHG11 (Supplementary Figure 1B). As shown in Figure 2A and B, SNHG11 down-regulation resulted in a significant decreased IC50 and cell growth of T98G and pGBM1 upon TMZ treatment. However, the IC50 and cell growth of U87 and pGBM2 were not affected by SNHG11 knockdown (Supplementary Figure 1C and D). Moreover, SNHG11 knockdown contributed increased apoptosis of T98G and pGBM1, while the apoptosis of U87 and pGBM2 was not affected (Figure 2C and D, Supplementary Figure 1E and F). These results strongly suggested that SNHG11 plays an important role on mediating TMZ resistance in GBM cells.
SNHG11 confers TMZ resistance through elevating MGMT
According to the above results, we hypothesized that SNHG11 could modulate TMZ resistance in GBM cells through MGMT. To confirm the hypothesis, qPCR and WB were performed and the results showed that overexpression of SNHG11 in T98G and pGBM1 cells significantly increased the mRNA and protein levels of MGMT (Figure 3A and B). The mRNA and protein levels of MGMT decreased after down-regulation of SNHG11 (Figure 3A and B). These findings suggested that SNHG11 was responsible for MGMT expression. Further in vitro experiments indicated that MGMT blocking using O6-benzylguanine (O6-BG) restrained the increased chemoresistance caused by SNHG11 overexpression (Figure 3C-E). si-MGMT transfection conferred similar effect as O6-BG (Figure 3C-E ). Together, these results implied that SNHG11 promotes TMZ resistance through MGMT.
SNHG11 serves as a sponge for miR-7-5p
One of the most important role of lncRNAs on regulating target genes is functioning as ceRNAs (competing endogenous RNAs) in the cytoplasm. To investigate the functional mechanism of SNHG11, FISH and qRT-PCR were performed to identify the distribution of SNHG11 in cells. As shown in Figure 4 A and B, most of SNHG11 was enriched in cytoplasm, which gives it the ability to function as a ceRNA. Through the analysis using starbase, miRcode and DIANA databases, we found a candidate miRNA (miR-7-5p) that has the potential to bind with SNHG11 (Figure 4C). To confirm the predicative result, dual luciferase reporter assays were performed and the results showed that miR-7-5p transfection significantly suppressed the luciferase activity driven by SNHG11. Furthermore, the mutation of SNHG11 resorted the suppressive effect caused by miR-7-5p overexpression (Figure 4D and E). In addition, we employed Ago2-based RIP assays to determine the specific interaction between SNHG11 and miR-7-5p. As shown in Figure 4F, higher enrichment of SNHG11 and miR-7-5p were detected in the IP production of AGO2 group than IgG group.
Next, we performed in vitro experiments to confirm the role of SNHG11/miR-7-5p axis on regulating TMZ resistance in GBM cells. The results of in vitro assays showed that SNHG11 depletion led to increased sensitivity, and miR-7-5p co-transfection could further increase the sensitivity, while anti-miR-7-5p co-transfection partially reversed the effect induced by SNHG11 depletion (Supplementary Figure 2A-D). Taken together, these results indicated that SNHG11 promotes TMZ resistance through sponging miR-7-5p.
IRS2 is a direct target of miR-7-5p
Next, we used 5 prediction tools (microT, miRanda, PITA, RNA22 and PicTar) to identify the target genes of miR-7-5p. As shown in Figure 5A, seven common genes were identified (IRS2, MBD2, ASXL1, AMBRA1, PATL1, RPS6KB1 and NFAT5). Thus, we selected these seven genes as potential downstream targets of miR-7-5p. RT-PCR results showed that upregulation of miR-7-5p greatly suppressed IRS2 expression in GBM cells, while down-regulation of miR-7-5p greatly promoted IRS2 expression (Figure 5B). In addition, we found that miR-7-5p overexpression decreased IRS2 protein levels, while decreased miR-7-5p induced increased IRS2 protein levels (Figure 5C). The expression of other six proteins were not affected by dysregulation on miR-7-5p. To further confirm the direct target of miR-7-5p to IRS2, we constructed wild-type and mutant IRS2 3’UTR luciferase reporter plasmids (Figure 5D). Then, dual luciferase reporter assays were performed, and the results showed that miR-7-5p overexpression significantly inhibited luciferase activity of GBM cells transfected with wild-type luciferase reporter plasmids; however, mutation in the miR-7-binding seed region of the IRS2 3’UTR abolished the repressive effect of miR-7-5p (Figure 5D). In addition, RNA-ChIP assays were employed, and the results suggested that miR-7-5p overexpression led to increased IRS2 mRNA abundance in the RISC complex (Figure 5E-G). These data suggested that IRS2 is a direct target of miR-7-5p.
IRS2 is regulated by SNHG11
Next, we co-transfected SNHG11 and miR-7-5p in GBM cells, and found that miR-7-5p could restore the increased IRS2 levels induced by SNHG11 overexpression (Figure 6A). Meanwhile, we co-transfected SNHG11 shRNA and anti-miR-7-5p in GBM cells, and found that down-regulation of miR-7-5p could rescue the decreased IRS2 levels induced by down-regulation of SNHG11 (Figure 6A). We then studied whether SNHG11 regulated IRS2 through miR-7-5p. Wild-type and mutant IRS2 luciferase reporter plasmids were constructed. As shown in Figure 6B, the luciferase activity of wild-type IRS2 reporter was increased with SNHG11 overexpression, while the activity of mutant reporter was not affected. On the contrary, the luciferase activity of wild-type IRS2 reporter was decreased with SNHG11 down-regulation. As expected, mutant reporter was not affected by SNHG11 knockdown (Figure 6C). Moreover, Ago2-based RIP assays were performed. The RIP results showed that IRS2 could bind to Ago2, and qRT-PCR results suggested that overexpression of SNHG11 led to decreased IRS2 enrichment in IP production of Ago2, while down-regulation of SNHG11 contributed to increased IRS2 enrichment in IP production of Ago2 (Figure 6D and E).
Next, we tend to figure out the SNHG11/IRS2 axis on regulating TMZ resistance on GBM cells. Colony formation assays, FACS and western blots were performed, and the results suggested that IRS2 overexpression could significantly reverse the increased sensitivity of GBM cells to TMZ induced by SNHG11 knockdown (Supplementary Figure 3A-C). These results demonstrated that SNHG11 could positively regulate IRS2 through sponging miR-7, which promotes TMZ resistance in GMB cells.
SNHG11 increases MGMT by activating STAT3
MGMT levels were proved to be regulated by histone modifications. Chuanlu Jiang et.al pointed out that Lnc-TALC increases MGMT expression by mediating the H3K9/27/36 acetylation in MGMT promoter region. Therefore, we tend to investigate whether SNHG11/IRS2/STAT3 axis could increases MGMT through modify histone acetylation. We totally examined H3K4, H3K9 and H4K27 and H3K36, which were reported to be the regulating sites, acetylation levels in MGMT promoter region. The results showed that SNHG11 overexpression significantly increased H3K9Ac level instead of the other H3 sites (Figure 7A and Supplementary Figure 4A-C). While down-regulation of SNHG11 led to a loss of H3K9Ac in the MGMT promoter region (Figure 7A). And, no significant changes were observed of H3K4Ac, H3K27Ac and H3K36Ac in GBM cells transfected with sh-SNHG11 (Supplementary Figure 4A-C). These results suggested that SNHG11 promotes MGMT expression through modulating the acetylation of H3K9Ac.
Next, we tend to figure out how SNHG11 modulate the acetylation of H3K9Ac. Previous studies indicated that the interaction between IRS2 and JAK2 protein could further activating JAK/STAT3 signaling pathway. Our results also proved that SNHG11 knockdown significantly inhibited STAT3 activation, while SNHG11 overexpression promoted STAT3 activation and SH-4-54 (STAT3 inhibitor) abolished this effect (Figure 7B and Supplementary Figure 4D). These results suggested that SNHG11 could positively modulate STAT3 phosphorylation levels. Meanwhile, as shown in Figure 7B and Supplementary Figure 4D, we found that SH-4-54 treatment significantly abolished the increased level of MGMT caused by SNHG11 overexpression, indicating SNHG11 regulating MGMT through activating STAT3. Previous results indicated that STAT3 could post-transcriptionally regulates MGMT15. And STAT3 could interact with p300, which is a histone acetyltransferase, to modulating the histone acetylation of MGMT16. We found that SNHG11 overexpression significantly increased the interaction between pSTAT3 and p300 in GBM cells, and SNHG11 knockdown decreased the binding of p300 to pSTAT3 (Figure 7C and Supplementary Figure 4E). Moreover, SNHG11 overexpression elevated the enrichment of p300 in the MGMT promoter, and SNHG11 knockdown decreased the enrichment of p300 in the MGMT promoter (Figure 7D and Supplementary Figure 4F). Collectively, these results suggested that SNHG11 increases MGMT expression by modulating STAT3/p300 complex-mediated H3K9 acetylation.
SNHG11 knockdown increases TMZ sensitivity in vivo
To measure the effect of SNHG11 on modulating TMZ resistance in GBM, we established control or SNHG11 depleted pGBM1 cells transfected with luciferase plasmid. Then, pGBM1 cells were orthotopically injected into nude mice. Two weeks after injection, tumor-bearing mice were treated with TMZ (60mg kg/day per mouse) or placebo. In vivo bioluminescence imaging system was used to trace the tumor progression. As shown in Figure 8A and B, knockdown of SNHG11 significantly increased the sensitivity of GBM to TMZ. And mice with SNHG11 depleted tumor possessed longer survival (Figure 9C). Meanwhile, IHC results showed that tumors derived from SNHG11 depleted cells expressed decreased pSTAT3 and MGMT levels, and cleaved caspase-3 levels were increased (Figure 9D). These results confirmed the effect of SNHG11 on promoting TMZ resistance in GBM cells.