406907

MIR124-1

MIR124A|MIR124A1|MIRN124-1|MIRN124A1;microRNA 124-1;MIR124-1;microRNA 124-1

hsa-mir-124-1|hsa-mir-124a-1|microRNA 124a-1

8p23.1

ncRNA

microRNAs (miRNAs) are small noncoding RNAs which play essential roles in many important biological processes. Therefore, their dysfunction is associated with a variety of human diseases, including cancer. Increasing evidence shows that miRNAs can act as oncogenes or tumor suppressors, and although there is great interest in research into these cancer-associated miRNAs, little is known about them. In this study, we performed a comprehensive analysis of putative human miRNA oncogenes and tumor suppressors. We found that miRNA oncogenes and tumor suppressors clearly show different patterns in function, evolutionary rate, expression, chromosome distribution, molecule size, free energy, transcription factors, and targets. For example, miRNA oncogenes are located mainly in the amplified regions in human cancers, whereas miRNA tumor suppressors are located mainly in the deleted regions. miRNA oncogenes tend to cleave target mRNAs more frequently than miRNA tumor suppressors. These results indicate that these two types of cancer-associated miRNAs play different roles in cancer formation and development. Moreover, the patterns identified here can discriminate novel miRNA oncogenes and tumor suppressors with a high degree of accuracy. This study represents the first large-scale bioinformatic analysis of human miRNA oncogenes and tumor suppressors. Our findings provide help for not only understanding of miRNAs in cancer but also for the specific identification of novel miRNAs as miRNA oncogenes and tumor suppressors. In addition, the data presented in this study will be valuable for the study of both miRNAs and cancer.

The EGFR-driven cell-cycle pathway has been extensively studied due to its pivotal role in breast cancer proliferation and pathogenesis. Although several studies reported regulation of individual pathway components by microRNAs (miRNAs), little is known about how miRNAs coordinate the EGFR protein network on a global miRNA (miRNome) level. Here, we combined a large-scale miRNA screening approach with a high-throughput proteomic readout and network-based data analysis to identify which miRNAs are involved, and to uncover potential regulatory patterns. Our results indicated that the regulation of proteins by miRNAs is dominated by the nucleotide matching mechanism between seed sequences of the miRNAs and 3-UTR of target genes. Furthermore, the novel network-analysis methodology we developed implied the existence of consistent intrinsic regulatory patterns where miRNAs simultaneously co-regulate several proteins acting in the same functional module. Finally, our approach led us to identify and validate three miRNAs (miR-124, miR-147 and miR-193a-3p) as novel tumor suppressors that co-target EGFR-driven cell-cycle network proteins and inhibit cell-cycle progression and proliferation in breast cancer.

Mounting evidence has shown that microRNAs (miRNAs) are implicated in carcinogenesis and can function as oncogenes or tumor suppressor genes in human cancers. Recent profile studies of miRNA expression have documented a deregulation of miRNA (miR-214) in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). However, its potential functions and underlying mechanisms in hepatocarcinogenesis remain largely unknown. Here, we confirmed that miR-214 is significantly downregulated in HCC cells and specimens. Ectopic overexpression of miR-214 inhibited proliferation of HCC cells in vitro and tumorigenicity in vivo. Further studies revealed that miR-214 could directly target the 3-untranslated region (3-UTR) of beta-catenin mRNA and suppress its protein expression. Similar to the restoring miR-214 expression, beta-catenin downregulation inhibited cell growth, whereas restoring the beta-catenin expression abolished the function of miR-214. Moreover, miR-214-mediated reduction of beta-catenin resulted in suppression of several downstream genes including c-Myc, cyclinD1, TCF-1, and LEF-1. These findings indicate that miR-214 serves as tumor suppressor and plays substantial roles in inhibiting the tumorigenesis of HCC through suppression of beta-catenin. Given these, miR-214 may serve as a useful prognostic or therapeutic target for treatment of HCC.

BACKGROUND: microRNAs (miRNAs) have been documented as playing important roles in cancer development. In this study, we investigated the role of miR-124 in breast cancer and clarified the regulation of flotillin-1 (FLOT1) by miR-124. METHODS: The expression levels of miR-124 were examined in breast cancer cell lines and patient specimens using quantitative reverse transcription-PCR. The clinicopathological significance of the resultant data was later analyzed. Next, we explored the function of miR-124 to determine its potential roles on cancer cell growth and migration in vitro. A luciferase reporter assay was conducted to confirm the target gene of miR-124, and the results were validated in cell lines and patient specimens. RESULTS: We found that miR-124 expression was significantly downregulated in breast cancer cell lines and patient specimen compared with normal cell lines and paired adjacent normal tissues (P < 0.0001), respectively. MiR-124 was also associated with tumor node metastasis (TNM) stage (P = 0.0007) and lymph node metastasis (P = 0.0004). In breast cancer cell lines, the ectopic expression of miR-124 inhibited cell growth and migration in vitro. Moreover, we identified the FLOT1 gene as a novel direct target of miR-124, and miR-124 ectopic expression significantly inhibited FLOT1. Luciferase assays confirmed that miR-124 could directly bind to the 3 untranslated region of FLOT1 and suppress translation. Moreover, FLOT1 was widely upregulated, and inversely correlated with miR-124 in breast cancer tissues. Consistent with the effect of miR-124, the knockdown of FLOT1 significantly inhibited breast cancer cell growth and migration. We also observed that the rescue expression of FLOT1 partially restored the effects of miR-124. CONCLUSIONS: Our study demonstrated that miR-124 might be a tumor suppressor in breast cancer via the regulation of FLOT1. This microRNA could serve as a potential diagnostic marker and therapeutic target for breast cancer.