Evidence for a TMAO-HULC-miRNA regulatory axis in colorectal cancer cells.

ABSTRACT: Colorectal cancer (CRC) is a malignancy with a significant global disease burden.Trimethylamine N-oxide (TMAO), a gut microbiota-derived metabolite, has been implicated in tumorigenesis. The oncogenic long non-coding RNA highly upregulated in liver cancer (HULC) plays a pivotal role in CRC progression. However, the exact molecular mechanism of HULC and its correlation with TMAO in CRC pathogenesis has remained unclear. This study tested whether TMAO regulates HULC and whether HULC mediates changes in selected miRNAs relevant to CRC. Caco-2 cells were treated with TMAO (300 µM, 24 h) and HULC expression was quantified by RT-qPCR. HULC was transiently silenced using CRISPR/Cas13 (CasRx) and the expression of candidate downstream miRNAs (miR-21-5p, miR-200a-3p and miR-34a-5p) was measured by

SUBMITTER: Alighardashi Z 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12664689 | biostudies-literature | 2025

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature