Exosomal circEIF3K from cancer-associated fibroblast promotes colorectal cancer (CRC) progression via miR-214/PD-L1 axis

Background Tumor microenvironment (e.g., cancer-associated fibroblast) plays a key role in cancer tumorigenesis and metastasis. However, the detailed mechanism of whether hypoxia promotes CRC progression via tumor microenvironment remains unclear. Methods In this study, circEIF3K exosome was examined by NanoSight Tracking Analysis and RT-qPCR. We used cell colony formation assay, transwell assay and tube formation assay to determine proliferation, invasion and metastasis of HCT116 or SW620 cells. Xenograft tumor assay was employed to show in vivo tumor growth of HCT116 cells. Results We found that hypoxia could induce secretion of circEIF3K exosome. Conditioned medium (CM) and exosome from circEIF3K knockdown CAF significantly attenuated proliferation, invasion and tube formation of HCT116 or SW620 cells, which could be reverted by miR-214 under hypoxia treatment. Besides, we observed that circEIF3K knockdown evidently impaired tumor growth in mice. TCGA dataset analysis showed that low expression of circEIF3K was observed in normal tissues and associated with prolonged survival time. Finally, PD-L1 was confirmed as important target for miR-214 in CRC. Conclusion In conclusion, our study reveals that a novel axis circEIF3K/miR-214/PD-L1 mediates hypoxia-induced CRC progression via CAF, providing the rationale for developing new targeted therapeutics to treat CRC.