MicroRNA‑320a downregulation mediates human liver cancer cell proliferation through the Wnt/β‑catenin signaling pathway

Lu,Caicheng; Liao,Zengwei; Cai,Minxian; Zhang,Guirong

doi:10.3892/ol.2016.5479

MicroRNA‑320a downregulation mediates human liver cancer cell proliferation through the Wnt/β‑catenin signaling pathway

Authors:
- Caicheng Lu
- Zengwei Liao
- Minxian Cai
- Guirong Zhang
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Affiliations: Department of Medical Technology, The Second Hospital of Longyan, Longyan, Fujian 364000, P.R. China
Published online on: December 12, 2016 https://doi.org/10.3892/ol.2016.5479
Pages: 573-578
Copyright: © Lu et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of Creative Commons Attribution License.

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Abstract

MicroRNAs (miRs) have emerged as key epigenetic regulators involved in cancer progression. miR‑320a has been demonstrated to be a novel tumor suppressive microRNA in several types of cancers. In the present study, the role of miR‑320a in human hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) was investigated. The expression levels of miR-320a and messenger RNA were determined by reverse transcription-quantitative polymerase chain reaction, while cell cycle and cell apoptosis were analyzed by flow cytometry. The cell proliferative ability was determined by Cell Counting Kit-8 assay and colony formation assay. The downstream target of miR-320a was confirmed by luciferase reporter assay, while the protein levels were measured by western blotting. The results revealed that miR‑320a was inversely associated with HCC proliferation in HCC cell lines. Functional studies demonstrated that miR‑320a significantly decreased the capability of cell proliferation and induced G0/G1 growth arrest in vitro. In addition, β‑catenin was identified as one of the direct targets of miR‑320a, downregulating the expression level of β‑catenin, c‑myc, cyclin D1 and dickkopf‑1. In conclusion, miR‑320a may act as a tumor‑suppressive microRNA through targeting β‑catenin in HCC.

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