MicroRNA-193a inhibits breast cancer proliferation and metastasis by downregulating WT1

  • PLoS One. 2017 Oct 10;12(10):e0185565. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0185565.
FeiYan Xie  1 Sumayyah Hosany  1 Shen Zhong  1 Yang Jiang  1 Fen Zhang  1 LiLi Lin  1 XiaoBo Wang  1 ShenMeng Gao  2 XiaoQu Hu  3
Affiliations
  • 1. Wenzhou Medical University, Wenzhou, Zhejiang, People's Republic of China.
  • 2. Laboratory of Internal Medicine, The First Affiliated Hospital of Wenzhou Medical University, Wenzhou, Zhejiang, People's Republic of China.
  • 3. Department of Surgical Oncology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Wenzhou Medical University, Wenzhou, Zhejiang, People's Republic of China.
Abstract

In many cancers, microRNA-193a (miR-193a) is a suppressor miRNA, but its underlying anti-oncogenic activity in breast Cancer is not known. In this study, we found decreased miR-193a (specifically, miR-193a-5p) expression not only in breast Cancer cell lines but also in breast Cancer tissues as compared with the adjacent non-tumor tissues. Ectopic miR-193a overexpression inhibited the proliferation, colony formation, migration, and invasion of MDA-MB-231 and BT549 cells. miR-193a reduced Wilms' tumor 1 (WT1) expression and repressed luciferase reporter activity by binding WT1 coding region sequences; mutation of the predicted miR-193a binding site abolished this effect. miR-193a and WT1 expression were significantly inversely correlated in breast Cancer tissues. Importantly, the anti-cancer activity induced by miR-193a was partially reversed by WT1 overexpression, indicating an important role for WT1 in such activity related to miR-193a. Our results reveal that miR-193a-WT1 interaction plays an important role in breast Cancer metastasis, and suggest that restoring miR-193a expression is a therapeutic strategy in breast Cancer.

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