Abstract
It has been demonstrated that microRNA (miR)-133a is downregulated in a number of human malignancies and is closely associated with the progression of tumors. The present study was conducted to investigate the contribution of miR-133a to the initiation and malignant progression of human epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC). Quantitative polymerase chain reaction was employed to detect the expression of miR-133a in the human EOC OVCAR-3 cell line, normal human ovarian surface epithelial (tsT) cells and 96 tissue samples, including 70 EOC tissues and 26 normal ovarian tissue sections. Additionally, analysis of the correlation between miR-133a levels and clinicopathological characteristics was carried out. The effect of miR-133a on cell viability, apoptosis, invasion and migration was investigated following transfection with miR-133a mimics and negative control small interfering RNA in OVCAR-3 cells. Marked downregulation of miR-133a was observed in the OVCAR-3 cell line and primary tumor samples, and it was found that reduced miR-133a expression significantly correlated with advanced clinical stages, poor histological differentiation and lymph node metastasis. Furthermore, OVCAR-3 cell viability, invasion and migration were significantly inhibited, while cell apoptosis was increased, following transfection of miR-133a mimics. The present study reveals the critical role that miR-133a plays in EOC pathogenesis and development, indicating that it may act as a promising biomarker for predicting EOC progression and as a potential target for gene therapy.
Highlights
It has been demonstrated that epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) serves as one of the most common types of cancer in females and is the leading cause of mortality from gynecologicalKey words: microRNA‐133a, epithelial ovarian cancer, tumor stage, metastasis, invasion, migration malignancy worldwide [1]
In order to investigate the biological roles of miR‐133a in human EOC pathogenesis and progression, miR‐133a expression was measured by quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) in human OSE(tsT) and OVCAR‐3 EOC cell lines
In order to determine whether miR‐133a functions as a tumor suppressor in EOC, cell viability and apoptosis were analyzed in the present study
Summary
It has been demonstrated that epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) serves as one of the most common types of cancer in females and is the leading cause of mortality from gynecological. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small (20‐24 nucleotides) noncoding RNA gene products that post‐transcriptionally regulate gene expression by negatively modulating the stability or translational efficiency of their target mRNAs [3]. MiRNAs have been shown to be differentially expressed in a number of other cancer types [5,6]. MiRNAs are considered to be the critical factors in numerous malignancies, acting as tumor suppressors or oncogenes [7,8]. Previous studies have illustrated that various miRNAs may lead to invasion and metastasis in EOC [9,10,11,12,13]
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