NCBP2 promotes colorectal cancer growth and metastasis by driving lipid droplet accumulation by stabilizing LIPG mRNA

RNA-binding proteins are critical for RNA processing and aberrantly expressed in colorectal cancer (CRC). In this study, by screening and bioinformatic analyses of the TCGA database and GSE20916 and GSE18105 datasets, NCBP2 was ultimately identified as a potential oncogene in CRC. We observed that NCBP2 was overexpressed in tumour tissues; its overexpression was correlated with CRC invasion and distant metastasis and indicated poorer survival in CRC patients. NCBP2 overexpression promoted the proliferation, migration and invasion of CRC cells in vitro and in vivo. Mechanistically, the NCBP2 protein stabilizes LIPG mRNA and increases LIPG expression via direct binding to m7G in the 5'-cap structure of LIPG mRNA. NCBP2 also facilitates lipid droplet accumulation in CRC cells in a LIPG-dependent manner. This study demonstrated that the NCBP2–LIPG–lipid droplet axis represents a new mechanism for CRC growth and distant metastasis and is a promising target for CRC treatment. Overall design: HCT116 cells cultured with 10%FSP serum were collected using Trizo. PCDH was used as the control group and overexpressed NCBP2 was used as the experimental group. Each treatment group had 2 replication groups. The samples were sent to MajorBIO (Shanghai, China) for deep sequencing using illumina Hiseq.