Background: Clinical tolerance to trastuzumab greatly affects the therapeutic effect in breast cancer (BC). Long-chain non-coding RNA (lncRNA) plays an important role in the development of trastuzumab resistance, in which SNHG7 can promote the epithelial mesenchymal transformation (EMT) of breast cancer cells into, while EMT is related to trastuzumab resistance of breast cancer cells.
Objective: To investigate whether lncRNA-SNHG7 can enhance chemotherapy resistance and cell viability of BC cells by regulating miR-186.
Methods: SK-BR-3 and SNHG7 of HER2+BC cells were induced to enhance the resistance of BC cells to trastuzumab by regulating miR-186, and to regulate the expression levels of SNHG7 and miR-186. The sensitivity of drug-resistant cells to trastuzumab and the changes of cell proliferation, migration, apoptosis, and EMT were measured and verified by tumorigenesis in vivo. The effects of miR-186 on SNHG7 were investigated through rescue experiments; the regulatory relationship between the expression of SNHG7 and miR-186 was verified by the double luciferase reporter (DLR) and the mechanism of SNHG7 was explored.
Results: Down-regulation of SNHG7 or up-regulation of miR-186 could increase the sensitivity of BC cells to trastuzumab, inhibit the proliferation, migration and EMT, and promote apoptosis. Compared with the down-regulation of SNHG7 or miR-186 alone, simultaneous down-regulation of SNHG7 and miR-186 on drug-resistant cells brought notably lower sensitivity to trastuzumab and apoptosis rate, and higher proliferation and apoptosis ability. The DLR showed that miR-186 could specifically inhibit the expression of SNHG7. The results of tumorigenesis in vivo revealed that down-regulation of SNHG7 or up-regulation of miR-186 could improve the therapeutic effect of trastuzumab and reduce the tumor volume, and miR-186 could also antagonize the effect of SNHG7.
Conclusion: Down-regulation of SNHG7-targeted miR-186 can reverse trastuzumab resistance of BC cells, inhibit the proliferation, migration, and EMT levels of BC cells, and promote apoptosis.
Keywords: SNHG7, miR-186, breast cancer, drug resistance