β-catenin-coordinated lncRNA MALAT1 up-regulation of ZEB-1 could enhance the telomerase activity in HGF-mediated differentiation of bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells into hepatocytes.

Objective: To investigate role of β-catenin and lncRNA MALAT1/miR-217 axis to converge into the regulation of ZEB-1 in hepatocyte growth factor (HGF)-induced hepatocytes differentiated from bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells (BM-MSCs).

Methods: BM-MSCs were isolated and HGF was used to induce the differentiation of BM-MSCs into hepatocytes. HSC-T6 cells, BRL-3 A cells and differentiated BM-MSCs were treated by lipopolysaccharide(LPS). shRNAs were used to silence β-catenin and recombinant plasmids were used to over-express ZEB1. Measurement of cell viability was conducted using MTT assay and Hoechst 33342 staining. RNA immunoprecipitation (RIP) assay was used to determine binding of miR-217-3p and MALAT1.

Results: BM-MSCs successfully differentiated into hepatocytes by HGF treatment. Expression of β-catenin, ZEB-1 and TERT was up-regulated to a higher level in hepatocytes differentiated from BM-MSCs than HSC-T6 cells and BRL-3 A cells after LPS stimulation. When β-catenin was knocked down in all cell lines, expression of β-catenin, ZEB-1 and TERT was significantly decreased as well as telomerase activity. While when ZEB1 was over-expressed, expression of TERT and telomerase activity was all significantly up-regulated. In hepatocytes differentiated from BM-MSCs, miR-217 was down-regulated and lncRNA MALAT1 was up-regulated. RIP analysis showed MALAT1 was physically associated with miR-217 and might function in the regulation of ZEB-1, further enhancing the expression of TERT so as to augment telomerase activity.

Conclusion: We successfully used HGF to mediate differentiation of BM-MSCs into hepatocytes, and found that β-catenin-coordinated MALAT1/miR-217 axis could up-regulate expression of ZEB-1 and further enhanced the telomerase activity through regulation of TERT in BM-MSCs differentiating into hepatocytes.