Exosomal lncRNA Mir100hg derived from cancer stem cells enhance glycolysis and promote metastasis of lung adenocarcinoma through mircroRNA-15a-5p/31-5p

BACKGROUND: Exosomes are a new class of molecular entities in the metastatic microenvironment, which can mediate bidirectional communication between cells. While exosomes-mediated interactions between tumor cells and other cell populations in the tumor microenvironment have attracted most attention, little is known about the significance of exosomes in mediating the interaction between non-stemness cancer cells and cancer stem cells during cancer progression. METHODS: The structure, sequence and downstream target miRNAs of lncRNA Mir100hg were predicted by online web resources. The bioinformatics prediction results were validated with experimental verification: exosome tracing, electron microscopy, Luciferase assay, metabolomics sequencing and mouse tail vein model of pulmonary metastasis. A complex regulatory network of "cancer stem cells-exosomal lncRNA-non-stem cancer cells" was constructed. RESULTS: This study demonstrates firstly that lncRNA Mir100hg is upregulated in lung cancer stem cell LLC-SD (Lung cancer stem cells) and can be delivered to non-stemness cancer cells LLC (Lewis lung cancer cells) via exosomes. In LLC, Mir100hg targets miR-15a-5p and miR-31-5p which leads to the increase of the global glycolytic activity of lung cancer cells and consequently, the enhancement of their metastatic capability. CONCLUSION: We delineated a complex regulatory network that utilized by cancer stem cells to transfer their high metastatic activity to the low-metastatic non-stemness cancer cells through exosomal Mir100hg, thereby providing new mechanistic insights into the communication between two heterogeneous tumor cells. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12964-023-01281-3.