YY1-mediated reticulocalbin-2 upregulation promotes the hepatocellular carcinoma progression via activating MYC signaling

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is a common digestive tumor with high fatality worldwide. Previous studies have shown that Reticulocalbin-2 (RCN2) was a crucial factor for HCC proliferation, but invasion and migration mechanism of RCN2 contributing to HCC is poorly investigated. In this study, we estimated the RCN2 expression in both patient tissues and cell lines by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and western blotting (WB), as well as the clinical information of HCC patients from public databases. Biological function induced by RCN2 in vitro and vivo was also researched through multiple functional experiments. Upstream and downstream signal of RCN2 was identified by bioinformatics. We found that up-regulated RCN2 was related to poorer prognosis in HCC patients and attached significance to HCC proliferation, invasion and migration. Luciferase reporter assay and chromatin immunoprecipitation validated that YY1 as the upstream transcription factor of RCN2, facilitating the expression of RCN2. Gene set enrichment analysis indicated that HCC progression induced by RCN2 might be related to MYC signaling. Furthermore, we demonstrated RCN2 reduced proteasomal degradation of MYC and lead to HCC progression. The effects of overexpressed RCN2 in HCC were attenuated by MYC silencing. In conclusion, our study highlighted the vital role of RCN2 in tumor progression and the potential benefit for the treatment of HCC.