LncRNA SNHG5 regulates imatinib resistance in chronic myeloid leukemia via acting as a CeRNA against MiR-205-5p.

Abstract

Imatinib resistance has become a major obstacle for the treatment of chronic myeloid leukemia (CML). The present study aimed to investigate the effects of the long non-coding RNA, SNHG5 on imatinib resistance in CML and explored the underlying mechanisms. The quantitative real-time PCR results showed that SNHG5 and ABCC2 expressions were up-regulated in the isolated peripheral blood cells of the CML patients when compared with healthy controls, and SNHG5 expression levels was positively correlated with ABCC2 in CML patients. <i>In vitro</i> studies showed that the expressions of SNHG5 and ABCC2 were up-regulated in imatinib resistant cells (K562-R) when compared to K562 cells. Bioinformatics analysis showed the interaction between SNHG5 and miR-205-5p, which was further confirmed by luciferase reporter assay and RNA immune-precipitation in K562 cells. Overexpression of SNHG5 suppressed the expression of miR-205-5p and the expression of SNHG5 was negatively correlated with the miR-205-5p expression in CML patients. In addition, ABCC2 was predicted as a downstream target of miR-205-5p, which was further confirmed by the luciferase reporter assay in K562-R cells, and overexpression of miR-205-5p suppressed the expression of ABCC2 in K562-R cells. <i>In vitro</i> functional assay showed that overexpression of SNHG5 in K562 cells increased imatinib resistance and knock-down of SNHG5 reduced the imatinib resistance in K562-R cells. Further experiments showed that SNHG5 promotes imatinib resistance through regulating ABCC2. Taken together, SNHG5 promotes imatinib resistance in CML via acting as a competing endogenous RNA against miR-205-5p.