Abstract
Ovarian cancer is one of the most common gynecologic malignancies with a highly immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment (TME) and poor prognosis. Circular RNA (circRNA) is a type of noncoding RNA with high stability, which has been shown to play an important role in biological processes and TME reprogramming in a variety of tumors. The biological function of a novel circRNA, circATP2B4, in epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) was detected and evaluated. Transmission electron microscopy, differential ultracentrifugation and qRT-PCR were used to verify the existence of extracellular vesicles (EV)-packaged circATP2B4. Macrophage uptake of circATP2B4 was determined by EVs tracing. Dual luciferase reporter, FISH, Western blotting, and flow cytometry assays were used to investigate the interactions between circATP2B4 and miR-532-3p as well as sterol regulatory element-binding factor 1 (SREBF1) expression in macrophages. CircATP2B4 was upregulated in EOC tissues and positively correlated with ovarian cancer progression. Functionally, circATP2B4 promoted carcinogenic progression and metastasis of EOC both in vitro and in vivo. Mechanistically, EV-packaged circATP2B4 in EOC could be transmitted to infiltrated macrophages and acted as competing endogenous RNA of miR-532-3p to relieve the repressive effect of miR-532-3p on its target SREBF1. Furthermore, circATP2B4 induced macrophage M2 polarization by regulating the miR-532-3p/SREBF1/PI3Kα/AKT axis, thereby leading to immunosuppression and ovarian cancer metastasis. Collectively, these data indicate that circATP2B4-containing EVs generated by EOC cells promoted M2 macrophages polarization and malignant behaviors of EOC cells. Thus, targeting EVs-packaged circATP2B4 may provide a potential diagnosis and treatment strategy for ovarian cancer.