A TGF-β-induced long non-coding RNA eSNAI1 activates SNAI1 enhancer in cis and stimulates epithelial to mesenchymal transition of cancer cells

We identified a tumor-promoting long non-coding RNA (lncRNA) named eSNAI1 (enhancer RNA of SNAI1) which is induced by TGF-beta and enforces TGF-beta signaling. It was found to promtotes TGF-beta-induced epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT), cell migration and extravasation in a zebrafish exnograft model. To better dissect the downstream target genes and elucidate the signaling pathways altered by eSNAI1, we overexpressed eSNAI1 by CRISPRa in MDA-MB-231 cells. Total RNA was collected and sent for RNA sequencing analysis. Afterwards, differentially expressd genes were used for the pathway enrichment analysis and gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA). eSNAI1 is overexpressed by a CRISPRa system with two independent gRNAs in MDA-MB-231 cells. RNA from cells transduced with the empty vector for gRNA expression was set as a control. Three biological replicates were included in each group.