MicroRNA-519c-3p promotes tumor growth and metastasis of hepatocellular carcinoma by targeting BTG3

Publication date: October 2019Source: Biomedicine & Pharmacotherapy, Volume 118Author(s): Liang Wang, Huanye Mo, Yezhen Jiang, Yufeng Wang, Liankang Sun, Bowen Yao, Tianxiang Chen, Runkun Liu, Qing Li, Qingguang Liu, Guozhi YinAbstractTumor recurrence and metastasis after surgical resection are the major causes for the cancer-related death of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Thus, better understanding the mechanisms involved in tumor progression will benefit to improve HCC treatment. Accumulating evidence demonstrates that microRNAs (miRNAs) play critical roles in the development and progression of HCC. However, the function of miR-519c-3p in HCC and its related mechanism remain unexplored. Here, we reported that miR-519c-3p was strongly overexpressed in HCC tissues, which was significantly correlated with poor prognosis and clinicopathological features including tumor size ≥5 cm, vascular invasion and advanced tumor-node-metastasis (TNM) stages (III + IV). Furthermore, the elevated levels of miR-519c-3p were observed in HCC cell lines. Subsequently, gain- or loss-of-function assays demonstrated that miR-519c-3p promoted HCC cell proliferation, migration as well as invasion in vitro, and facilitated the growth and metastasis of HCC cells in vivo. Mechanistically, B-cell translocation gene 3 (BTG3) was identified as a direct downstream target of miR-519c-3p. The level of BTG3 mRNA was downregulated in HCC and negatively correlated with miR-519c-3p expression. Western bl...
Source: Biomedicine and Pharmacotherapy - Category: Drugs & Pharmacology Source Type: research