The peptide encoded by a novel putative lncRNA HBVPTPAP inducing the apoptosis of hepatocellular carcinoma cells by modulating JAK/STAT signaling pathways

• Published in: Virus research 2020-10, Vol.287, p.198104-198104, Article 198104
• Main Authors: Lun, Yong-Zhi, Pan, Zhi-Peng, Liu, Shun-Ai, Sun, Jie, Han, Ming, Liu, Ben, Dong, Wen, Pan, Ling-Hong, Cheng, Jun
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Cell proliferation; Encoded polypeptide; JAK/STAT pathway; LncRNA HBVPTPAP; Mitochondrial pathway of apoptosis
• ISSN: 0168-1702; 1872-7492
• DOI: 10.1016/j.virusres.2020.198104

•lncRNA HBVPTPAP was upregulated in hepatocellular carcinoma.•lncRNA HBVPTPAP subcellular was mainly located in the cytoplasm, and had the ability of coding polypeptides.•The interaction between the peptide encoded by lncRNA HBVPTPAP and PILRA possibly activated the JAK/STAT pathway.•The peptide encoded by lncRNA HBVPTPAP could potentially mediate the apoptosis through the mitochondrial pathways. When the hepatitis B virus (HBV) enters target cells, there are complex trans-regulatory mechanisms involved in the interactions between the virus and the target cells. In the present study, a new gene screened from the hepatoblastoma cell line HepG2 using suppression subtractive hybridization, referred to as lncRNA HBVPTPAP, was used to study the trans-regulation of HBV DNA polymerase. According to the structural characteristics of the full-length sequences, it was classified as long non-coding RNA. However, a unique and complete open reading frame (ORF) was still present. Therefore, to further identify the lncRNA HBVPTPAP gene's encoding potential, this study used several online tools to analyze and verify its encoding polypeptide authenticity. On that basis, the effects of the lncRNA HBVPTPAP gene on the biological behaviors of HepG2 cells and its molecular regulatory mechanism were investigated. It was found that the lncRNA HBVPTPAP subcellular was mainly located in the cytoplasm, and possibly activated the downstream JAK/STAT signaling pathway through the interaction between the encoding polypeptide and PILRA intracellular domain. Then, the mitochondrial apoptosis pathway may have been initiated to induce apoptosis. These results provided a basis for further study of the biological functions of the lncRNA HBVPTPAP gene.