Circular RNA hsa_circ_0054537 sponges miR-130a-3p to promote the progression of renal cell carcinoma through regulating cMet pathway

Renal cell carcinoma (RCC) is one of the most common tumors of the urinary system, seriously impacting public health. CircRNAs have been indicated as potentially critical mediators in tumorigenesis and cancer progression. However, their specific role in the metastasis of RCC remains unclear. In present study, we identified that miR130a-3p presented aberrantly low-level in RCC cells. Furthermore, it was demonstrated that upregulated miR130a-3p suppressed the proliferation and migration of cell and promoted cell apoptosis in RCC. Then we predicted the underlyingly upstream modulator of miR-130a-3p was a novel circRNA hsa_circ_0054537, which exhibited dysregulated in RCC cells. Subsequently, we confirmed the direct interaction between hsa_circ_0054537 and miR-130a-3p by RNA pulldown assay. Additionally, luciferase assay confirmed the correlation between hsa_circ_0054537 and miR-130a-3p at the transcriptional level. We also found hsa_circ_0054537 could affect the tumorigenesis through binding to miR-130a-3p competitively. In addition, we identified the target of miR-130a-3p was oncogene cMet, which could be co-controlled by hsa_circ_0054537 and miR-130a-3p. In conclusion, we demonstrated that circRNA hsa_circ_0054537 functioned as a competitive endogenous RNA to regulate cMet expression via sponging miR-130a-3p in renal cancer.