Renal cell carcinoma (RCC) is one of the most common tumors of the urinary system, seriously impacting public health. CircRNAs have been indicated as potentially critical mediators in tumorigenesis and cancer progression. However, their specific role in the metastasis of RCC remains unclear. In present study, we identified that miR-130a-3p presented aberrantly low-level in RCC cells. Furthermore, it was demonstrated that upregulated miR-130a-3p suppressed the proliferation and migration of cell and promoted cell apoptosis in RCC. Then we predicted the underlyingly upstream modulator of miR-130a-3p was a novel circRNA hsa_circ_0054537, which exhibited dysregulated in RCC cells. Subsequently, we confirmed the direct interaction between hsa_circ_0054537 and miR-130a-3p by RNA pulldown assay. Additionally, luciferase assay confirmed the correlation between hsa_circ_0054537 and miR-130a-3p at the transcriptional level. We also found hsa_circ_0054537 could affect the tumorigenesis through binding to miR-130a-3p competitively. In addition, we identified the target of miR-130a-3p was oncogene cMet, which could be co-controlled by hsa_circ_0054537 and miR-130a-3p. In conclusion, we demonstrated that circRNA hsa_circ_0054537 functioned as a competitive endogenous RNA to regulate cMet expression via sponging miR-130a-3p in renal cancer.

肾细胞癌（RCC）是泌尿系统最常见的肿瘤之一，严重影响公共健康。CircRNAs已被证明是肿瘤发生和癌症发展过程中潜在的关键介质。然而，它们在RCC转移中的具体作用仍不清楚。在本研究中，我们确定了miR-130a-3p在RCC细胞中呈异常低水平表达。此外，已证明miR-130a-3p的上调抑制了RCC中细胞的增殖和迁移并促进了细胞凋亡。然后我们预测，miR-130a-3p的潜在上游调节剂是新型circRNA hsa_circ_0054537，其在RCC细胞中表现出失调。随后，我们通过RNA下拉分析确认了hsa_circ_0054537与miR-130a-3p之间的直接相互作用。另外，荧光素酶测定法在转录水平上证实了hsa_circ_0054537与miR-130a-3p之间的相关性。我们还发现hsa_circ_0054537可以通过竞争性结合miR-130a-3p来影响肿瘤发生。此外，我们确定了miR-130a-3p的靶标是癌基因cMet，它可以由hsa_circ_0054537和miR-130a-3p共同控制。总之，我们证明了circRNA hsa_circ_0054537可以作为竞争性内源性RNA，通过在肾脏癌中通过海绵状miR-130a-3p调节cMet表达。