ISSN: 1837-9664Journal of Cancer
Global reach, higher impact
J Cancer 2020; 11(9):2476-2484. doi:10.7150/jca.37748 This issue Cite
Research Paper
MicroRNA-19a-3p regulates cell growth through modulation of the PIK3IP1-AKT pathway in hepatocellular carcinoma
1. Liver Cancer Institute, Zhongshan Hospital, Fudan University; Key Laboratory of Carcinogenesis and Cancer Invasion (Fudan University), Ministry of Education, Shanghai 200032, China
2. Department of Liver Surgery and Transplantation, Zhongshan Hospital, Fudan University; Key Laboratory of Carcinogenesis and Cancer Invasion (Fudan University), Ministry of Education, Shanghai 200032, China
3. Minhang Hospital, Fudan University; Institute of Fudan-Minhang Academic Health System, Minhang Hospital, Fudan University, Shanghai 200032, China
4. Institute of Biomedical Sciences, Fudan University, Shanghai 200032, China
* contributed equally
Abstract
There are some controversies about the involvement of microRNA (miR)-19a-3p in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) biology, even though many studies have shown that it plays an important role in cancer. In this study, we found that miR-19a-3p is usually overexpressed in HCC tissues compared with corresponding peritumorous tissues, and its expression was associated with tumor size and poor overall survival. MiR-19a-3p promoted cell proliferation significantly, and more cells were found in the S phase. In vivo, miR-19a-3p promoted liver tumor growth, and more HCC cells were found in the active cell cycle. Sequencing and bioinformatics analysis predicted that PIK3IP1 is a likely target gene of miR-19a-3p, and we next confirmed it by luciferase and rescue assays. Altogether, our data showed an important role of PIK3IP1 downregulation by miR-19a-3p in HCC progression, and the miR-19a-3p-PIK3IP1-AKT pathway may be a potential therapeutic target.
Keywords: microRNA-19a-3p, miR-19a-3p, phosphatidyl inositol 3-kinase interacting protein 1, PIK3IP1, hepatocellular carcinoma, cell growth
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