MicroRNAs (miRNAs) play crucial regulators of affecting hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) development and progression. However, the biological role and underlying molecular mechanism of miR-613 in HCC still remain well unknown. In the study, our results demonstrated that expression of miR-613 was significantly lower in HCC tissues compared with adjacent normal tissues by quantitative Real-time PCR (qRT-PCR) assay. The association between miR-613 expression and clinicopathologic characteristics analysis showed that lower miR-613 expression significantly associated with tumor size, vascular infiltration and poor prognostic outcome in HCC patients. In vitro, ectopic overexpression of miR-613 significantly inhibited cell proliferation and invasion capability, while down-regulated miR-613 had reversed effects. Furthermore, luciferase reporter gene assay, qRT-PCR, and western blot assays demonstrated that miR-613 target 3'-untranslated region (UTR) of YWHAZ and regulated its expression in HCC cells. Overexpression of YWHAZ partially abolished the tumor suppressing effects induced by upregulating miR-613 in HCC cells. Thus, our results implied that miR-613 may represent a novel potentially therapeutic target for HCC.
Keywords: Cell invasion; Cell proliferation; Hepatocellular carcinoma; YWHAZ; miR-613.
Copyright © 2018. Published by Elsevier B.V.