MicroRNA‐944 inhibits migration and invasion in melanoma cells by targeting Notch2

Abstract

Melanoma is a malignant tumor of melanocytes. The incidence of melanoma is increasing in worldwide. miR‐944 is a primates‐specific microRNA, which plays a role as putative tumor suppressor in cancer cells. However, the function of miR‐944 in melanoma is not reported yet. In this study, we observed that the migration and invasion in melanoma cells transfected with miR‐944 was decreased compared to that in control cells. The expression of cellular invasion‐related genes was decreased in miR‐944 transfected cells. By using bioinformatics program, Notch2 was selected as a target of miR‐944. The overexpression of miR‐944 inhibited the expression of Notch2 in melanoma cells. By reporter assay, we found miR‐944 binding to the 3′UTR of Notch2. Knockdown of Notch2 in melanoma cells also suppressed cellular migration and decreased the expression of cellular invasion‐related genes. Taken together, our results show that miR‐944 suppressed migration of melanoma cells by targeting Notch2. These finding may have important implications concerning the molecular mechanisms of invasion and migration in melanoma.Support or Funding InformationThis research was supported by a grant from Basic Science Research Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) (No. 2017R1A2B4009615).This abstract is from the Experimental Biology 2018 Meeting. There is no full text article associated with this abstract published in The FASEB Journal.