Long Noncoding RNA JHDM1D-AS1 Promotes Tumor Growth by Regulating Angiogenesis in Response to Nutrient Starvation

Long noncoding RNAs play a pivotal role in tumor progression, but their role in cancer cells in the nutrient-starved tumor microenvironment remains unknown. Here, we show that a nutrient starvation-responsive long noncoding RNA, JHDM1D antisense 1 (JHDM1D-AS1), promotes tumorigenesis by regulating angiogenesis in response to nutrient starvation. Expression of JHDM1D-AS1 was increased in cancer cells. In addition, expression of JHDM1D-AS1 was increased in clinical tumor samples compared to that in normal tissue. Stable expression of JHDM1D-AS1 in human pancreatic cancer (PANC-1 and AsPC-1) cells promoted cell growth in vitro. Remarkably, these JHDM1D-AS1-expressing cells showed a significant increase in tumor growth in vivo that was associated with increased formation of CD31(+) blood vessels and elevated infiltration of CD11b(+) macrophage lineage cells into tumor tissues. Genome-wide analysis of tumor xenografts revealed that expression of genes for tumor-derived angiogenic factors such as hHGF and hFGF1 concomitant with host-derived inflammation-responsive genes such as mMmp3, mMmp9, mS100a8, and mS100a9 was increased in tumor xenografts of JHDM1D-AS1-expressing pancreatic cancer cells, leading to a poor prognosis. Our results provide evidence that increased JHDM1D-AS1 expression under nutrient starvation accelerates tumor growth by upregulating angiogenesis, thus laying the foundation for improved therapeutic strategies.