The aim of our study was to investigate the effects of miR-133a-3p on human oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) cells by regulating gene COL1A1. OSCC tissues, adjacent tongue epithelial tissues, the immortalized oral epithelial cell line HIOEC, and OSCC cell lines (CAL-27, TCA-8113, SCC-4, SCC-9, and SCC-15) were used in this research. Quantitative real-time PCR (RT-qPCR) was employed to determine the expression of miR-133a-3p and COL1A1. Dual luciferase reporter gene assay and Western blot were applied to verify the binding relationship between miR-133a-3p and COL1A1. Functional assays were also conducted in this study, including CCK-8 assay, colony formation assay, flow cytometry analysis as well as Transwell assay. MiR-133a-3p was found low-expressed both in OSCC tissues and cells lines compared with normal tissues and cell line, respectively, whereas COL1A1 was just the opposite. The over-expression of miR-133a-3p or the down-regulation of COL1A1 suppressed the proliferation, invasion, and mitosis of OSCC cells, whereas simultaneous down-regulation of miR-133a-3p and up-regulation of COL1A1 led to no significant alteration of cell activities. MiR-133a-3p could inhibit the proliferation and migration of OSCC cells through directly targeting COL1A1 and reducing its expression.

Tumor-specific cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTLs) from patients with early-stage tumors are usually more efficient at attacking tumor cells than CTLs from the progressing tumor stages. The authors investigated the antitumor activity of CTLs from gastric cancer patents and healthy donors. In this study, peripheral blood lymphocytes (PBLs) from gastric cancer patients and healthy donors were stimulated with HLA-A matched allogeneic gastric cancer cells such as KATO-3, MKN45, and SGC7901. Three different populations of lymphocyte, p5-CTL-KATO, h4-CTL-MKN45, and h4-CTL-KATO, were induced and expanded. Flow cytometry analyses showed that 85.2% to 97.8% of these cells were CD3-positive and 45.5% to 51.2% were CD8-positive. The induced CTLs efficiently kill HLA-A2 or HLA-A24 gastric cancer cells through CTL-mediated cytotoxicity. However, no effects were observed for other cancer cells or HLA-A2 negative gastric cancer cells. The specific cytotoxicity of the induced CTLs was further confirmed by cold-target inhibition and monoclonal antibody blockage. These results suggest that CTL-mediated cytotoxicity specific for tumor cells can be produced by stimulating PBLs from healthy donors using HLA-A matched tumor cells, which will lead to the development of new immunotherapeutic strategies to kill cancer cells.