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. 2024 Apr 16;19(4):e0298947. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0298947

CircPRMT5 promotes progression of osteosarcoma by recruiting CNBP to regulate the translation and stability of CDK6 mRNA

Yunlu Liu 1,#, Hongyan Jiang 2,#, Keli Hu 1, Hui Zou 1, Weiguo Zhang 1, Jiangtao Liu 1, Xiaofei Jian 1,*
Editor: Zhijie Xu3
PMCID: PMC11020494  PMID: 38626179

Abstract

Research has demonstrated that circular RNAs (circRNAs) exert critical functions in the occurrence and progression of numerous malignant tumors. CircPRMT5 was recently reported to be involved in the pathogenesis of cancers. However, the potential role of circPRMT5 in osteosarcoma needs further investigation. In present study, our results suggested that circPRMT5 was highly upregulated in osteosarcoma cells and mainly localizes in the cytoplasm. CircPRMT5 promoted the proliferation, migration and invasion capacities of osteosarcoma cells, and suppressed cell apoptosis. Knockdown of circPRMT5 exerted the opposite effects. Mechanically, circPRMT5 promoted the binding of CNBP to CDK6 mRNA, which enhanced the stability of CDK6 mRNA and facilitated its translation, thereby promoting the progression of osteosarcoma. Knockdown of CDK6 reversed the promoting effect of circPRMT5 on osteosarcoma cells. These findings suggest that circPRMT5 promotes osteosarcoma cell malignant activity by recruiting CNBP to regulate the translation and stability of CDK6 mRNA. Thus, circPRMT5 may represent a promising therapeutic target for osteosarcoma.

Introduction

As the most prevalent malignant bone neoplasm, osteosarcoma is a great threat to human health, especially for adolescents and children [1]. Osteosarcoma has a rapid progression, and many patients are already in the advanced stage when they are initially diagnosed [1,2]. The 5-year survival rate for osteosarcoma patients with recurrent or metastatic tumors is only 20% [3]. Currently, there is no effective treatment to stop osteosarcoma progression. Therefore, a deeper understanding of the molecular mechanisms underlying the pathogenesis of osteosarcoma is essential to identify new therapeutic targets.

Circular RNAs (circRNAs), formed by the reverse splicing of precursor mRNA exons [4,5], play a vital role in various human diseases, including renal diseases [6], rheumatoid arthritis [7] and immune diseases [8]. Studies have also demonstrated a functional role of circRNAs in the pathophysiology of cancer [9]. For example, Cao et al. found that circRNF20 facilitated tumorigenesis of breast cancer via sponging miR-487a, thereby regulating the expression of hexokinase II [10]. Yang et al. reported that hsa_circRNA_0088036 promotes bladder cancer progression by regulating FOXQ1 expression [11]. Moreover, circRNAs have been considered potential targets for cancer diagnosis or therapy because of their structural stability, evolutionary conserved nature and organ specificity [5].

Previous researches have reported that circRNAs exert key biological functions in cancer development and progression by serving as miRNA sponges [1214] or translation templates [15,16]. Emerging research has revealed that circRNAs can also bind RNA binding proteins (RBPs) to regulate the stability or translation of mRNAs [17]. For example, hsa_circ_0068631 was found to participate into the development of breast cancer by recruiting EIF4A3 to stabilize c-Myc mRNA [18]. Sun et al. found that circMYBL2 recruits PTBP1 to enhance the translation of FLT3, which plays a critical function in acute myeloid leukemia progression [19].

CircPRMT5 has been found to be upregulated in different types of cancers, including bladder urothelial cancer [20], thyroid cancer [21] and colorectal cancer [22], and exert vital functional roles in their progression. However, the role of circPRMT5 in osteosarcoma is not yet known. Here, we found that circPRMT5 expression levels in osteosarcoma cells was significantly upregulated, and overexpression of circPRMT5 significantly promoted the proliferation, invasion and metastasis of osteosarcoma cells. Mechanistically, circPRMT5 enhanced cyclin-dependent kinase 6 (CDK6) expression by promoting the binding of CCHC-type zinc finger nucleic acid binding protein (CNBP) to CDK6 mRNA in osteosarcoma cells. Together, these findings indicate that circPRMT5 may serve as an oncogenic factor to promote CNBP-facilitated CDK6 expression and osteosarcoma progression.

Materials and methods

Cell culture

The osteosarcoma cell lines and normal human osteoblasts (hFOB1.19) were purchased from Procell Life Science and Technology Co., Ltd. (Wuhan, China). The cells were cultured in appropriate medium containing 10% fetal bovine serum (FBS; Gibco, Grand Island, USA) at 37°C in an incubator with 5% CO2.

Quantitative RT‑PCR (qRT‑PCR)

Total RNAs of the cultured cells were isolated with Trizol reagent. A nuclear and cytoplasm RNA extraction kit (RiboBio, Guangzhou) was used to analyze RNAs in nuclear and cytoplasmic extracts. qRT‑PCR was performed using the SYBR Green PCR kit (TaKaRa, Kyoto, Japan) as previously reported [23]. The primers are shown in S1 Table.

Cell transfection

Oligonucleotides of circPRMT5, sh-circPRMT5, sh-CDK6 and their negative controls were synthesized by GeneChem (Shanghai, China). These plasmids were transfected into cells for gene overexpression and knockdown using Lipofectamine 3000 (Invitrogen, MA, USA). The sequences are shown in S2 Table.

RNA-fluorescence in situ hybridization (RNA-FISH)

Assays were performed using RNA-FISH kit (RiboBio, China) following the manufacturer’s instructions. Biotin-labeled probe for circPRMT5 was synthesized by RiboBio Technology Co., Ltd. The sequence is as follows: CircPRMT5: 5′-ACCCGCATCCAGAACTTGAGGAGCCGG-3′. Images were acquired using laser confocal microscopy (Leica, Germany).

Cell proliferation assay

Cell viability was detected using the MTT kit (Proteintech, Wuhan, China). Briefly, 2,000 cells/well were seeded into 96-well plates and cultured for various time periods. 10 μL of MTT reagent was added into the plates and incubated for 2h. Finally, the optical densities were measured at 570 nm.

Colony formation assay

The cells were plated 1 × 103 cells/well and cultured under standard conditions for 2 weeks. After washing 2 times with PBS, the cell colonies were fixed by 10% formaldehyde and stained with 0.1% crystal violet.

Transwell assay

Transwell assay was conducted using a Transwell chamber (Corning, Shanghai, China) as described previously [24]. Briefly, the indicated numbers of serum-free cell suspensions were plated into the top chamber. While, the complete medium with 20% FBS was added to the bottom chamber. After incubation, the cells were fixed with 10% formaldehyde and stained with 0.1% crystal violet.

Wound-healing assay

The migration ability of osteosarcoma cells was evaluated using a wound-healing assay as described previously [25]. A density of 1.5 × 105 cells was added into a 6-well plate, and cultured for 24 h. Subsequently, a sterile plastic micropipette tips were used to create a straight wound of equal width at the bottom of the well. After 0 h and 48 h, images were taken with a light microscope.

Western blot (WB) analysis

WB analysis was conducted as described previously [24]. Briefly, the protein samples were separated by 10% SDS-PAGE electrophoresis and transferred onto PVDF membranes (Millipore, MA, USA). The protein bands were probed with indicated antibodies and detected using an enhanced chemiluminescence system (Millipore). Antibody information is listed in S3 Table.

TUNEL assay

The apoptosis of osteosarcoma cells was detected using the TUNEL cell apoptosis assay kit (Thermo Fisher Scientific, USA) according to the manufacturer’s manual.

Cell cycle analysis

The PI/RNase Staining Solution kit (Thermo) was used to assess the cell cycle distribution. Briefly, the cells were collected and fixed with cold 70% ethanol. After staining with 50 μg/ml PI and 20 μg/ml RNase solution, subsequently the cells were subjected to flow cytometry.

RNA-immunoprecipitation (RIP)

The RIP assays were performed with the RIP kit (Millipore). Briefly, the cells were lysed and incubated with target antibody overnight or IgG. The co-precipitated RNAs was extracted and analyzed by qRT-PCR. The antibody information for RIP is presented in S3 Table.

RNA pull-down

Assays were preformed using the RNA-protein pull-down kit (Thermo). The protein complex immunoprecipitated by circPRMT5 was eluted and subjected to WB analysis. The gel was stained by Coomassie bright blue (Merck, Germany). Mass spectrometry was used to identify the proteins immunoprecipitated by circPRMT5.

Bioinformatic analysis

The mass spectrum (MS) results for circPRMT5-interacting factors were overlapped with RBP and transcription factor (TF) databases. The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database and Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) database (accession number: GSE12865) were used to identify the differentially expressed mRNAs between normal and osteosarcoma tissues. The Encyclopedia of RNA Interactomes (ENCORI) database was used to predict the target mRNAs of circPRMT5.

Statistical analysis

Statistical analyses were performed using GraphPad Prism 8.0 software. All data are expressed as mean ± standard deviation (SD) with the difference compared by student’s t-test or one-way analysis of variance. P values < 0.05 were considered significant.

Results

CircPRMT5 is highly expressed in osteosarcoma cells

CircPRMT5 has been implicated in tumor initiation and progression [20,22]. However, its role in osteosarcoma has not been reported. First, we performed Sanger sequencing on the PCR product of circPRMT5 in osteosarcoma cells and verified the cyclization site (Fig 1A). Analysis of amplification results with convergent or divergent primers confirmed the circular structure of circPRMT5 (Fig 1B). We then examined the circPRMT5 expression in different osteosarcoma cell lines, and found that circPRMT5 was upregulated in MNNG/HOS and MG-63 cells (Fig 1C). Thus, we selected these two cell lines for subsequent experiments. The results of RNase R exonuclease digestion experiments showed that circPRMT5 was resistant to RNase R exonuclease (Fig 1D and 1E). Additionally, circPRMT5 had a longer half-life than PRMT5 (Fig 1F and 1G). These results indicated the stable circular structure of circPRMT5. We examined the localization of circPRMT5 in MNNG/HOS and MG-63 cells by qRT-PCR and RNA-FISH assay. The results indicated that circPRMT5 was mainly localized in the cytoplasm and not the nucleus (Fig 1H and 1I).

Fig 1. CircPRMT5 is highly expressed in osteosarcoma cells and mainly located in the cytoplasm.

Fig 1

A. Sanger sequencing results of circPRMT5. B. DNA electrophoresis of the PCR products from divergent or convergent primers. C. qRT-PCR results of circPRMT5 expression in hFOB1.19 cells and osteosarcoma cell lines. D-E. qRT-PCR results of circPRMT5 and PRMT5 expression in MNNG/HOS and MG-63 cells after RNase R treatment. F-G. qRT-PCR analyses of circPRMT5 and PRMT5 expression after actinomycin D (1 μg/ml) treatment for various times. H. qRT-PCR analyses of circPRMT5 and PRMT5 levels in the nuclear and cytoplasmic extracts of osteosarcoma cells. I. RNA-FISH assay with the circPRMT5 probe. Data are expressed as mean ± SD. *p<0.05, **p<0.01, ***p<0.001, ns, not significant.

CircPRMT5 promotes proliferation, migration and invasion and inhibits apoptosis of osteosarcoma cells

To explore the role of circPRMT5 in osteosarcoma cells, we overexpressed and knocked down circPRMT5 in MNNG/HOS and MG-63 cells (Fig 2A). Cell proliferation was evaluated by MTT and colony formation assays. The results showed that overexpression of circPRMT5 increased the proliferative ability of osteosarcoma cells (Fig 2B and 2C). Transwell and wound-healing assays revealed that circPRMT5 overexpression promoted the migratory and invasive abilities of osteosarcoma cells (Fig 2D–2F). In contrast, circPRMT5 knockdown significantly inhibited the proliferation, invasion and migration capabilities of osteosarcoma cells (Fig 2B–2F). Moreover, we found that overexpression of circPRMT5 resulted in a decrease in osteosarcoma cells apoptosis and a corresponding increase the percentage of cells in S phase, whereas silencing circPRMT5 had the opposite effects (Fig 3A and 3B). Notably, the expression of cell proliferation markers (MCM2 and PCNA) was significantly increased when circPRMT5 overexpression, and knockdown of circPRMT5 decreased their expression (Fig 3C). Together, our results demonstrated that circPRMT5 might serve as a tumor oncogene to regulate the progression of osteosarcoma cells.

Fig 2. CircPRMT5 promotes the proliferation, invasion and migration of osteosarcoma cells.

Fig 2

A. The efficacy of circPRMT5 overexpression or sh-circPRMT5 plasmid in MNNG/HOS and MG-63 cells detected by qRT-PCR. B. MTT assay in MNNG/HOS and MG-63 cells after circPRMT5 overexpression or knockdown. C. Colony formation assay in MNNG/HOS and MG-63 cells after circPRMT5 overexpression or knockdown. D-E. Transwell assay in MNNG/HOS and MG-63 cells after circPRMT5 overexpression or knockdown. F. Wound-healing assay in MNNG/HOS and MG-63 cells after circPRMT5 overexpression or knockdown. Data are expressed as mean ± SD. *p<0.05, **p<0.01, ***p<0.001.

Fig 3. CircPRMT5 promotes the proliferation and inhibits the apoptosis of osteosarcoma cells.

Fig 3

A. TUNEL assay in MNNG/HOS and MG-63 cells after circPRMT5 overexpression or knockdown. B. The cell cycle distribution of MNNG/HOS and MG-63 cells detected by flow cytometry after circPRMT5 overexpression or knockdown. C. Western blot analysis of MCM2 and PCNA expression in MNNG/HOS and MG-63 cells after circPRMT5 overexpression or knockdown. Data are expressed as mean ± SD. ***p<0.001.

CircPRMT5 binds the RCG domain of CNBP

To further investigate downstream targets of circPRMT5, we first examined the expression of its parental gene and found that enforced circPRMT5 expression did not affect PRMT5 expression level (Fig 4A). RIP assay showed no significant difference in the enrichment of circPRMT5 with AGO2 or IgG (Fig 4B), which indicates it may not function as a miRNA sponge.

Fig 4. CircPRMT5 binds with the RCG domain of CNBP.

Fig 4

A: qRT-PCR results of PRMT5 mRNA expression in MNNG/HOS and MG-63 cells after circPRMT5 overexpression. B. qRT-PCR analysis of circPRMT5 enrichment in RIP assay with IgG or AGO2 antibody. C. Overlapping analysis of RBP and TF gene lists with MS results. D. qRT-PCR analysis of circPRMT5 enrichment in RIP assay with IgG or the indicated antibodies. E. RNA pull-down with scramble or circPRMT5 probes in MNNG/HOS and MG-63 cells. F. Schematic of the truncated mutants of CNBP. G. DNA electrophoresis with the PCR products of circPRMT5 immunoprecipitated by the CNBP truncated mutants. H. WB analyses of CNBP expression after circPRMT5 overexpression. Data are expressed as mean ± SD. ***p<0.001, ns, not significant.

Previous studies reported that some circRNAs exert their function in cancer development by interacting with RBPs [17]. To explore this possibility, we collected the binding proteins of circPRMT5 using RNA-pulldown assays and identified the interacting proteins with MS. We compared the results with a list of established RBPs and TFs from databases, and five proteins were identified (Fig 4C). RIP assays showed that among the five candidate proteins, only CNBP interacted with circPRMT5 (Fig 4D). RNA-pulldown assay with anti-control or anti-circPRMT5 probe confirmed the interaction between circPRMT5 and CNBP (Fig 4E).

To investigate the specific domain that CNBP binds circPRMT5, we generated three truncated mutants of CNBP (Fig 4F). RIP assays were performed with wild-type or truncated mutants of CNBP. As shown in Fig 4G, the RCG domain of CNBP was required to bind with circPRMT5. We also observed that circPRMT5 overexpression did not affect the expression level of CNBP (Fig 4H).

CircPRMT5 recruits CNBP to regulate the stability and translation of CDK6 mRNA

To explore the target gene of circPRMT5, we analyzed the differently expressed genes in osteosarcoma from TCGA database and GSE12865. The results were overlapped with the predicted genes of circPRMT5 from the ENCORI database and three genes were selected (Fig 5A and 5B). Among the three genes, only CDK6 mRNA expression was changed after circPRMT5 overexpression or knockdown (Fig 5C). Previous studies reported that circRNAs can promote the binding of RBPs to mRNA, which in turn facilitates the stability and translation of mRNA [26]. Using RIP experiments, we found that overexpression of circPRMT5 promoted the interaction of CNBP and CDK6 mRNA and knockdown of circPRMT5 had the opposite effects (Fig 5D and 5E). Moreover, the half-life of CDK6 mRNA was prolonged in response to overexpression of circPRMT5, and shortened upon knockdown of circPRMT5 (Fig 5F and 5G). We further found that circPRMT5 overexpression resulted in increased translation of CDK6 (Fig 5H and 5I). Overall, these data suggested that circPRMT5 maintained the stability and translation of CDK6 mRNA through promoting the binding between CNBP and CDK6 mRNA.

Fig 5. CircPRMT5 recruits CNBP to regulate the stability and translation of CDK6 mRNA.

Fig 5

A. Analysis of the overlap of the predicted genes from ENCORI database and DEMs from TCGA database and GSE12865. B. Differentially expressed mRNAs in osteosarcoma and normal tissues from GSE12865 and TCGA database. C. qRT-PCR results of the indicated gene expression after circPRMT5 overexpression or knockdown. D. qRT-PCR analysis of CDK6 mRNA immunoprecipitated by CNBP after circPRMT5 overexpression. E. qRT-PCR analysis of CDK6 mRNA immunoprecipitated by CNBP after circPRMT5 knockdown. F. qRT-PCR analysis of CDK6 mRNA expression after actinomycin D (1 μg/ml) treatment for various times after circPRMT5 overexpression. G. qRT-PCR analysis of CDK6 mRNA expression after actinomycin D (1 μg/ml) treatment for various times after circPRMT5 knockdown. H. WB results of CDK6 expression after circPRMT5 overexpression. I. WB results of CDK6 expression after circPRMT5 knockdown. Data are expressed as mean ± SD. *p<0.05, **p<0.01, ***p<0.001, ns, not significant.

CircPRMT5 promotes the malignant activity of osteosarcoma cells by regulating CDK6

To examine whether the function role of circPRMT5 in promoting the malignant activity of osteosarcoma cells involves CDK6, we performed rescue experiments. First, we confirmed the efficacy of CDK6 knockdown by WB (Fig 6A). The results from MTT and colony formation assays supported that CDK6 knockdown blocked the proliferative ability enhanced by circPRMT5 overexpression (Fig 6B and 6C). Moreover, CDK6 knockdown reversed the effects of circPRMT5 overexpression on invasion and migration (Fig 6D–6F). Together, these findings indicated that circPRMT5 promoted osteosarcoma cell malignant activity by upregulating CDK6 expression.

Fig 6. CircPRMT5 promotes proliferation, invasion and migration of osteosarcoma cells by CDK6.

Fig 6

A. The efficacy of sh-CDK6 plasmid was confirmed by WB. B. MTT assay in MNNG/HOS and MG-63 cells after circPRMT5 overexpression and CDK6 knockdown. C. Colony formation assay in MNNG/HOS and MG-63 cells after circPRMT5 overexpression and CDK6 knockdown. D-E. Transwell assay in MNNG/HOS and MG-63 cells after circPRMT5 overexpression and CDK6 knockdown. F. Wound-healing assay in MNNG/HOS and MG-63 cells after circPRMT5 overexpression and CDK6 knockdown. Data are expressed as mean ± SD. **p<0.01, ***p<0.001.

Discussion

Recently, the role of circRNAs in cancer has been the focus of research attention. Various studies have shown that circRNAs are aberrantly expressed in various cancerous tissues and exert crucial functional role in regulating cancer progression [27]. CircPRMT5 was shown to promote the development of various types of tumors, and it is a promising therapeutic target for cancer. However, the role of circPRMT5 in osteosarcoma has been unknown. Here, we revealed that circPRMT5 was significantly upregulated in osteosarcoma and overexpression of circPRMT5 promotes the malignant activity of osteosarcoma cells. Our findings indicate that circPRMT5 may serve as a potential therapeutic target for osteosarcoma.

Many previous studies have focused on the mechanism of circRNAs as a miRNA sponge, in which circRNAs bind to miRNA and release the inhibition on downstream target genes [28]. For instance, Zhang et al. reported that circSTAU2 mitigated its inhibitory effect on CAPZA1 via binding to miR-589 [23]. Recent studies have indicated that circRNAs also act as a crucial regulators of gene expression via interacting with RBPs, which regulate the stability and translation of mRNAs [17]. Herein, we demonstrated a role of circPRMT5 in cancer cells by recruiting an RBP to regulate the translation and stability of a target mRNA. Several studies have indicated that one circRNA can regulate a biological process through different mechanisms [29], indicating that there are still many functions of circPRMT5 in cancer to be explored.

CNBP is a cellular nucleic acid-binding protein. Initial studies on CNBP mainly focused on its role in the embryogenesis of craniofacial structures and the human disease myotonic dystrophy type 2 [3032]. As an RBP, CNBP is involved in the transcriptional and post-transcriptional regulation of numerous critical genes, and thus participating in many different biological processes [33]. Notably, CNBP is closely associated with tumor occurrence and development [34]. Yang et al. revealed that overexpression of CNBP promoted gastric cancer progression [35]. Consistent with previous studies, our findings suggested that CNBP may act as a mRNA chaperone and enhance the mRNA translation and stability, thus promoting tumor progression.

CDK6 is a key regulator of cell-cycle that plays important role in the occurrence and survival of tumors [36]. Moreover, CDK6 expression is increased in many cancer types, and tumor progression is accompanied by enhanced activity of CDK6 [37,38], suggesting that CDK6 is an attractive target for tumor therapy. CDK4/6 inhibitors have shown good efficacy in clinical practice; these inhibitors have changed the therapeutic strategy for breast cancer and are showing promising effects in other malignancies [39]. Our study suggests that circPRMT5 promotes the malignant activity of osteosarcoma cells by promoting CDK6 expression, and inhibition of CDK6 expression can reverse these stimulative effects. This suggests that CDK6 may be an important downstream effector of circPRMT5 in osteosarcoma.

In conclusion, our results revealed that circPRMT5 promotes osteosarcoma malignant activity by recruiting CNBP to facilitate the translation and stability of CDK6 mRNA. Thus, circPRMT5 may represent a promising therapeutic target for osteosarcoma.

Supporting information

S1 Table. Primers sequences for qRT-PCR.

(DOCX)

pone.0298947.s001.docx (15.5KB, docx)
S2 Table. Sequences information for gene knockdown.

(DOCX)

pone.0298947.s002.docx (15.3KB, docx)
S3 Table. Antibody information used in this study.

(DOCX)

pone.0298947.s003.docx (16KB, docx)
S1 Raw images

(PDF)

pone.0298947.s004.pdf (262.2KB, pdf)
S1 Appendix

(DOCX)

pone.0298947.s005.docx (17KB, docx)
S1 File

(DOCX)

pone.0298947.s006.docx (43.5KB, docx)

Acknowledgments

We appreciate all participants in this study.

Data Availability

All relevant data are within the manuscript and its Supporting Information files.

Funding Statement

This work was supported by the Hubei Provincial Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 2023AFB1014).

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Decision Letter 0

Zhijie Xu

14 Sep 2023

PONE-D-23-20535CircPRMT5 promotes progression of osteosarcoma by recruiting CNBP to regulate the translation and stability of CDK6 mRNAPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Jian,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

Please submit your revised manuscript by Oct 29 2023 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file.

Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript:

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If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter.

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We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Zhijie Xu

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

5. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: 1. Please professionally edit the English language, including but not limited to tense and grammar.

2. The declaration “Our study is the first to demonstrate the role of circPRMT5 in tumor by recruiting RBPs to regulate the translation and stability of mRNA.” is arbitrary.

3. Fig. 3A of TUNEL representative figures are too inexplicit to been seen clearly. Please change show the readers high quality pictures.

4. Please provide the statistical analyses for each protein level in Fig. 3C, 5H, 5I, and 6A.

5. Please upload the original result pictures of Fig. 4G.

Reviewer #2: The manuscript tried to explore the role of circPRMT5 in the progress of osteosarcoma. Sanger sequencing results suggested that circPRMT5 was highly expressed in osteosarcoma cells. With multiple bio-techniques, it was found that circPRMT5 promoted the binding of CNBP to CDK6 mRNA. And the authors speculated that circPRMT5 promotes progression of osteosarcoma by recruiting CNBP to regulate the translation and stability of CDK6 mRNA. There is some novelty in this topic, but some points still need to be addressed for the publication in the journal of PlOS ONE.

1. Were there any cell lines acting as controls along with MNNG/HOS and MG-63 cell lines when the knockdown or overexpression were performed?

2. Can some circPRMT5 inhibitors be used to test whether they can inhibit the proliferation of osteosarcoma cells?

3. The relationship between circPRMT5 and CDK6 had better be elaborated. In the context, It was described that knockdown of CDK6 could rescue the proliferative ability enhanced by circPRMT5 overexpression, consequently, it was suggested that CDK6 knockdown could reverse the enhanced effects of circPRMT5 overexpression on invasion and migration, seems a bit contradictory.

**********

6. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

**********

[NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.]

While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step.

PLoS One. 2024 Apr 16;19(4):e0298947. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0298947.r002

Author response to Decision Letter 0


28 Oct 2023

Dear Pro. Zhijie Xu,

R.E.: PONE-D-23-20535

Thank you very much for your supervision of the reviewing process of our manuscript entitled " CircPRMT5 promotes progression of osteosarcoma by recruiting CNBP to regulate the translation and stability of CDK6 mRNA." We also highly appreciate the reviewer’s conscientiousness, carefulness and the broad knowledge on the relevant research field, since they have given us some beneficial suggestions. we have substantially revised our manuscript according to the reviewer’s comments. All amendments are highlighted in red in the revised manuscript. In addition, point-by-point responses to the comments are listed below this letter.

We hope that the revision is acceptable for the publication in your journal.

Look forward to hearing from you soon.

With best wishes,

Yours sincerely,

Dr. Xiaofei Jian

First of all, we would like to express our sincere gratitude to the reviewers for their constructive and positive comments.

Replies to Reviewer 1:

Reviewer comment: 1. Please professionally edit the English language, including but not limited to tense and grammar.

Author response: Thanks for your positive comment on the present study and insightful suggestion. We have edited the original manuscript in English language.

Reviewer comment: 2. The declaration “Our study is the first to demonstrate the role of circPRMT5 in tumor by recruiting RBPs to regulate the translation and stability of mRNA.” is arbitrary.

Author response: Thank you for pointing this out. Correction has been made in the revised manuscript.

Reviewer comment: 3. Fig. 3A of TUNEL representative figures are too inexplicit to been seen clearly. Please change show the readers high quality pictures.

Author response: Thank you for pointing this out. Accordingly, the high-quality pictures have been added in Fig. 3A.

Reviewer comment: 4. Please provide the statistical analyses for each protein level in Fig. 3C, 5H, 5I, and 6A.

Author response: We are very sorry for our negligence of this information. The statistical analysis has been performed and the graph has been added in the Fig. 3C, 5H, 5I, and 6A of the revised manuscript.

Reviewer comment: 5. Please upload the original result pictures of Fig. 4G.

Author response: We have therefore uploaded the original uncropped and unadjusted images in the revised manuscript.

Replies to Reviewer 2:

Reviewer comment: 1. Were there any cell lines acting as controls along with MNNG/HOS and MG-63 cell lines when the knockdown or overexpression were performed?

Author response: For investigate the biological roles of circPRMT5 in osteosarcoma cells, we established the overexpression and knockdown systems by using Lv-circRNA or sh-circRNA in MNNG/HOS and MG-63 cell lines. The efficiency of overexpression or knockdown was confirmed by qRT-PCR relative to the negative control. In present study, we did not use other cell lines acting as controls along with MNNG/HOS and MG-63 cell lines when the knockdown or overexpression were performed. In fact, circPRMT5 has been reported to be upregulate in other cancer cell lines (PMID: 30305293; PMID: 32020730), and the overexpression and knockdown systems have also been successfully established in their studies.

Reviewer comment: 2. Can some circPRMT5 inhibitors be used to test whether they can inhibit the proliferation of osteosarcoma cells?

Author response: We appreciate the reviewer to point out this professional point. In the current study of circRNA, construction of shRNA, which covered the back-splicing region of circRNA for silencing, is often used to inhibit its expression in cancer cells. Therefore, to determine whether circPRMT5 could influence the biological functions of osteosarcoma cells, circPRMT5 expression was stable knockdown by transfection with shRNA and sh-NC. The results showed that silence of circPRMT5 could significantly inhibit osteosarcoma cells’ proliferation capacities via MTT and colony formation assays (Fig 2B and C).

Reviewer comment: 3. The relationship between circPRMT5 and CDK6 had better be elaborated. In the context, It was described that knockdown of CDK6 could rescue the proliferative ability enhanced by circPRMT5 overexpression, consequently, it was suggested that CDK6 knockdown could reverse the enhanced effects of circPRMT5 overexpression on invasion and migration, seems a bit contradictory.

Author response: We felt very sorry that the way we express this sentence is not accurate. Accordingly, we have corrected this sentence in revised manuscript.

Decision Letter 1

Zhijie Xu

18 Dec 2023

PONE-D-23-20535R1CircPRMT5 promotes progression of osteosarcoma by recruiting CNBP to regulate the translation and stability of CDK6 mRNAPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Jian,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

Please submit your revised manuscript by Feb 01 2024 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file.

Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript:

  • A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the academic editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'.

  • A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'.

  • An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'.

If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter.

If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols. Additionally, PLOS ONE offers an option for publishing peer-reviewed Lab Protocol articles, which describe protocols hosted on protocols.io. Read more information on sharing protocols at https://plos.org/protocols?utm_medium=editorial-email&utm_source=authorletters&utm_campaign=protocols.

We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Zhijie Xu

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Journal Requirements:

Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice.

[Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.]

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation.

Reviewer #1: All comments have been addressed

Reviewer #2: (No Response)

**********

2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: (No Response)

**********

4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: No

**********

6. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: The data of this study suggest that circPRMT5 promotes osteosarcoma cell malignant activity by recruiting CNBP to regulate the translation and stability of CDK6 mRNA. Therefore, circPRMT5 may serve as a novel potential therapeutic target for osteosarcoma patients.The authors have completed the revision and the revised manuscript is acceptable now.

Reviewer #2: The manuscript has been revised carefully, there are some minor points need to be addressed.

1. The quality of the figures needs to be improved because they are not very inexplicit.

2. The language had better be improved by some native speakers.

3. Controls had better be performed for the knockdown or overexpression.

**********

7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #1: Yes: Xiaojuan Liu

Reviewer #2: No

**********

[NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.]

While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step.

PLoS One. 2024 Apr 16;19(4):e0298947. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0298947.r004

Author response to Decision Letter 1


31 Jan 2024

January 30th, 2024

Dear Pro. Zhijie Xu,

R.E.: PONE-D-23-20535R1

Thank you for your letter and the reviewers’ comments concerning our manuscript entitled " CircPRMT5 promotes progression of osteosarcoma by recruiting CNBP to regulate the translation and stability of CDK6 mRNA." Those comments are all valuable and very helpful for revising and improving our paper, as well as the important guiding significance to our researches. We have read through comments carefully and have made corrections. Based on the instructions provided in your letter, we uploaded the file of the revised manuscript. Revised portion are marked in blue in the paper. The responses to the reviewer's comments are presented following.

We would love to thank you for allowing us to resubmit a revised copy of the manuscript and we highly appreciate your time and consideration.

Look forward to hearing from you soon.

With best wishes,

Yours sincerely,

Dr. Xiaofei Jian

Reviewer comment: 1. The quality of the figures needs to be improved because they are not very inexplicit.

Author response: Thank you for the suggestion. We have adjusted the quality of the figures to make them clearer and easier to read.

Reviewer comment: 2. The language had better be improved by some native speakers.

Author response: We apologize for the language problems in the original manuscript. The language presentation was improved with assistance from a native English speaker with appropriate research background.

Reviewer comment: 3. Controls had better be performed for the knockdown or overexpression.

Author response: We are grateful for the suggestion. In this study, we established the overexpression and knockdown systems by using Lv-circRNA or sh-circRNA in the osteosarcoma cell lines. The efficiency of overexpression or knockdown was confirmed by qRT-PCR relative to the negative control (Fig. 2A). Moreover, targeting CDK6 with two independent short hairpin RNAs (shRNAs) against the back-spliced junction site resulted in effective knockdown of CDK6. The efficiency of knockdown was confirmed by Western blotting (Fig. 6A). Controls were normally set up in the above experiments. If necessary, we are willing to add additional tests to demonstrate the effect of overexpression or knockdown.

Decision Letter 2

Zhijie Xu

2 Feb 2024

CircPRMT5 promotes progression of osteosarcoma by recruiting CNBP to regulate the translation and stability of CDK6 mRNA

PONE-D-23-20535R2

Dear Dr. Jian,

We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements.

Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication.

An invoice for payment will follow shortly after the formal acceptance. To ensure an efficient process, please log into Editorial Manager at http://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/, click the 'Update My Information' link at the top of the page, and double check that your user information is up-to-date. If you have any billing related questions, please contact our Author Billing department directly at authorbilling@plos.org.

If your institution or institutions have a press office, please notify them about your upcoming paper to help maximize its impact. If they’ll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team as soon as possible -- no later than 48 hours after receiving the formal acceptance. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact onepress@plos.org.

Kind regards,

Zhijie Xu

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Reviewers' comments:

Acceptance letter

Zhijie Xu

4 Apr 2024

PONE-D-23-20535R2

PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Jian,

I'm pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been deemed suitable for publication in PLOS ONE. Congratulations! Your manuscript is now being handed over to our production team.

At this stage, our production department will prepare your paper for publication. This includes ensuring the following:

* All references, tables, and figures are properly cited

* All relevant supporting information is included in the manuscript submission,

* There are no issues that prevent the paper from being properly typeset

If revisions are needed, the production department will contact you directly to resolve them. If no revisions are needed, you will receive an email when the publication date has been set. At this time, we do not offer pre-publication proofs to authors during production of the accepted work. Please keep in mind that we are working through a large volume of accepted articles, so please give us a few weeks to review your paper and let you know the next and final steps.

Lastly, if your institution or institutions have a press office, please let them know about your upcoming paper now to help maximize its impact. If they'll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team within the next 48 hours. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact onepress@plos.org.

If we can help with anything else, please email us at customercare@plos.org.

Thank you for submitting your work to PLOS ONE and supporting open access.

Kind regards,

PLOS ONE Editorial Office Staff

on behalf of

Prof. Zhijie Xu

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Associated Data

    This section collects any data citations, data availability statements, or supplementary materials included in this article.

    Supplementary Materials

    S1 Table. Primers sequences for qRT-PCR.

    (DOCX)

    pone.0298947.s001.docx (15.5KB, docx)
    S2 Table. Sequences information for gene knockdown.

    (DOCX)

    pone.0298947.s002.docx (15.3KB, docx)
    S3 Table. Antibody information used in this study.

    (DOCX)

    pone.0298947.s003.docx (16KB, docx)
    S1 Raw images

    (PDF)

    pone.0298947.s004.pdf (262.2KB, pdf)
    S1 Appendix

    (DOCX)

    pone.0298947.s005.docx (17KB, docx)
    S1 File

    (DOCX)

    pone.0298947.s006.docx (43.5KB, docx)

    Data Availability Statement

    All relevant data are within the manuscript and its Supporting Information files.


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