LGALS3 promotes the proliferation of Liaoning Cashmere goat skin fibroblasts by regulating the expression of PIEZO1

<br />Long non-coding RNA (lncRNA) plays a role in the reconstruction of hair follicles and in the formation and growth of cashmere fibres. One cashmere growth-associated lncRNA was successfully screened out at the early stage in the laboratory, which was named LncRNA MTC. In this study, the binding of galectin 3 (LGALS3) to LncRNA MTC was examined through RNA immunoprecipitation (RIP) in skin fibroblasts of Liaoning Cashmere goats. The pLenti-LGALS3-His-IRES-EGFP lentiviral overexpression vector was built, and the result of CCK8 indicated that the overexpression of LGALS3 significantly enhanced the viability of skin fibroblasts (<i>P</i><i> </i>< 0.05). A total of 15 proteins interacting with LGALS3 were identified through co-immunoprecipitation (CO-IP) combined mass spectrometry, which were primarily rich in ECM-receptor interaction, focal adhesion, PI3K-AKT, and other signalling pathways. Moreover, PIEZO1 refers to a mechanically sensitive ion channel protein that is capable of regulating the cell proliferation. As revealed by qPCR results, overexpression of <i>LGALS3</i> significantly upregulated the expression of <i>PIEZO1</i>, which was effectively interfered by siRNA. The result of CCK8 indicated that siPIEZO1 significantly inhibited cell proliferation, whereas overexpression of LGALS3 protected cells from the suppression of siPIEZO1 (<i>P</i><i> </i>< 0.01). This study revealed that LGALS3 is capable of stimulating the proliferation of skin fibroblasts by regulating<i> PIEZO1</i>. The effect of LGALS3 on the proliferation of skin fibroblasts from the protein interaction was explored, and this study is expected to lay a certain scientific basis for the research on the hair follicle development mechanism of Liaoning Cashmere goats.