Abstract

BACKGROUND Ovarian cancer (OC) is a malignancy among female globally. Circular RNAs (circRNAs) are a family of circular endogenous RNAs generated from selective splicing, which take part in many traits. Former investigation suggested that hypoxia microenvironment induced aerobic glycolysis promotion malignant progression of OC. METHODS This research aimed to use FISH and RT-qPCR to investigate circ-PHC3 expression in OC cells and tissues after high-throughput sequencing. Our team made the luciferase reporter assay to validate circ-PHC3 downstream target. Transwell migration assay, 5-ethynyl-20-deoxyuridine, and cell counting kit-8 were applied to investigate both proliferation and migration. In vivo tumorigenesis and metastasis assays were performed to investigate the circ-PHC3 role in OC. The outputs elucidated that circ-PHC3 expression incremented in OC cells and tissues. circ-PHC3 downregulation inhibited OC cell proliferation as well as migration in in vivo and in vitro experiments. Metabolic studies confirmed that downregulation circ-PHC3 inhibit hypoxic induced aerobic glycolysis. RESULTS The luciferase results validated that miR-512-3p and SLC2A1/HK2 were circ-PHC3 downstream targets. SLC2A1/HK2 overexpression or miR-512-3p inhibition reversed OC cell migration after circ-PHC3 silencing. Also, SLC2A1/HK2 overexpression reversed OC cell migration and proliferation post miR-512-3p upregulation. CONCLUSIONS Results demonstrate that circ-PHC3 downregulation inhibits OC progression and metastasis via SLC2A1/HK2 expression regulation and miR-512-3p sponging.