Abstract
Chuannan Fan1,*, Biyu Lin1,*, Zhengjie Huang3,*, Dan Cui1,*, Minyi Zhu1, Zhenling Ma1, Yunda Zhang3, Fan Liu2 and Yingfu Liu2
1State Key Laboratory of Cellular Stress Biology, Innovation Center for Cell Signaling Network, School of Life Sciences, Xiamen University, Fujian Sheng, People’s Republic of China
2Medical College of Xiamen University, Department of Basic Medical Sciences, Medical College, Xiamen University, Fujian Sheng, People’s Republic of China
3Department of Surgical Oncology, First Affiliated Hospital of Xiamen University, Fujian Sheng, People’s Republic of China
*These authors contributed equally to this work
Correspondence to:
Yingfu Liu, email: liuyingfu@126.com
Fan Liu, email: liufan@xmu.edu.cn
Keywords: colorectal cancer; miR-873; ELK1; STRN4; metastasis
Received: July 03, 2017 Accepted: December 01, 2017 Epub: January 02, 2018 Published: June 25, 2019
ABSTRACT
MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are a group of small non-coding RNAs that directly bind to the 3ʹ-untranslated-region (3ʹUTR) of mRNA, thereby blocking gene expression post-transcriptionally. Accumulating evidence prove that microRNA-873 (miR-873) functions as a promoter or suppressor in various cancers, while whether it affects the progression of colorectal cancer (CRC) is yet unknown. Here we found that miR-873 was downregulated in human CRC clinical samples, mouse CRC specimens and cell lines with high metastatic potential. We also demonstrated that low miR-873 expression was closely associated with poor prognosis of CRC. Overexpressing miR-873 suppressed proliferation and metastasis of CRC cells both in vitro and in vivo, while inhibiting miR-873 expression promoted the proliferation, migration and invasion in vitro. Moreover, miR-873 exerted its function by perturbing the ERK-CyclinD1 pathway and the epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) process. Furthermore, we revealed that miR-873 acted as a tumor-suppressive microRNA by directly binding to the 3ʹUTRs of ELK1 and STRN4 and suppressed their expression. Our study uncovered an inhibitory role of miR-873 in CRC progression and might provide a promising marker for CRC diagnosis and prognosis.