LncRNA GIMA promotes hepatocarcinoma cell survival via inhibiting ATF4 under metabolic stress

Tumor cells are usually under nutrient-deficient microenvironment, a series of adaptive responses are adopted to maintain the cell survival and growth under the metabolic stress. However, the regulatory role of long non-coding RNA (lncRNA) in this process still remains elusive.To explore whether lncRNAs involve in regulating the hepatocarcinoma cell survival under the metabolic stress, GIMA(glucose-deprivation induced modulator of ATF4) was identified as an lncRNA induced by glucose deprivation via the transcriptome sequencing, and the upregulation of GIMA depends on the ATF4 activation under glucose deprivation. The Luciferase assay and the chromatin immunoprecipitation assay proved that GIMA is the transcriptional target gene of ATF4. Furthermore, GIMA promotes the hepatocarcinoma cell survival under glucose deprivation via specifically inhibiting ATF4. Taken together,these results suggest that GIMA may be a new potential target for the hepatocarcinoma treatment.