Silencing of circ_0009910 inhibits acute myeloid leukemia cell growth through increasing miR-20a-5p.

Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is the most common acute leukemia in adults, which is aggressive cancer. CircRNAs are abundantly expressed in the hematologic malignancy cells. In this study, we aimed to investigate the expression profiling of circRNAs in AML. We performed circRNA-sequencing to identify differentially expressed circRNAs in bone marrow samples from AML patients and iron-deficiency anemia (control). Furthermore, we found that circ_0009910 was significantly upregulated in AML patients compared with iron-deficiency anemia patients. High circ_0009910 expression predicted a poor risk and outcome of AML patients. Further experiments in vitro and in vivo demonstrated that knockdown of circ_0009910 inhibited AML cell proliferation and induced apoptosis through sponging miR-20a-5p. Our findings firstly identify that circ_0009910 is significantly upregulated in AML bone marrow samples and might serve as a novel outcome biomarker for AML. Both circ_0009910 and miR-20a-5p may be potential therapeutic targets for future AML treatment.