MicroRNA-1277 Inhibits Proliferation and Migration of Hepatocellular Carcinoma HepG2 Cells by Targeting and Suppressing BMP4 Expression and Reflects the Significant Indicative Role in Hepatocellular Carcinoma Pathology and Diagnosis After Magnetic Resonance Imaging Assessment

Abstract

Our study aimed to investigate the roles and possible regulatory mechanism of miR-1277 in the development of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). HCC patients were identified from patients who were diagnosed with focal liver lesions using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). The expression levels of miR-1277 in the serum of HCC patients and HepG2 cells were measured. Then miR-1277 mimics, miR-1277 inhibitor and scramble RNA were transfected into cells. The effects of miR-1277 overexpression and suppression on HepG2 cell proliferation, migration and invasion were then investigated. Additionally, the expression levels of epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT)-related markers, including E-cadherin, β-catenin and Vimentin, were detected. Besides, target prediction and luciferase reporter assay were performed to explore the potential target of miR-1277. MiR-1277 was significantly down-regulated in the serum of HCC patients and HepG2 cells. Suppression of miR-1277 promoted HepG2 cell proliferation, migration and invasion, whereas overexpression of miR-1277 had opposite effects. In addition, after miR-1277 was suppressed, the expressions of E-cadherin and β-catenin were significantly increased, while the expressions of Vimentin were markedly decreased. Besides, Morphogenetic Protein 4 (BMP4) was identified as the direct target of miR-1277. Knockdown of BMP4 reversed the effects of miR-1277 suppression on HepG2 cell migration and invasion, as well as the expressions of E-cadherin, β-catenin and Vimentin. Our results indicate that down-regulation of miR-1277 may promote the migration and invasion of HepG2 cells by targeting BMP4 to induce EMT. Combination of MRI and miR-1277 level will facilitate the diagnosis and treatment of HCC.

LINC01087 indicates a poor prognosis of glioma patients with preoperative MRI

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miR-1227-3p participates in the development of fetal growth restriction via regulating trophoblast cell proliferation and apoptosis

“…Recently, Cao et al demonstrated that miR-1227-3p served as a tumor suppressor in hepatocellular carcinoma via suppressing the proliferation of tumor cells 17 . Here, we further investigated the role of miR-1227-3p in FGR development.…”

Adjuvant therapy with Huatan Sanjie Granules improves the prognosis of patients with primary liver cancer: a cohort study and the investigation of its mechanism of action based on network pharmacology

“…Meanwhile, in mammalian cells, the ERK-related intracellular signal transduction pathway is considered the classical MAPK signal transduction pathway, and the ERK pathway also responds to a variety of growth factors through phosphorylation activation ( Gholinejad et al, 2017 ). ERK phosphorylation can activate tumour-promoting transcription factors such as NF-κB, MYC, and β-catenin, leading to gene expression ( Panahi et al, 2018 ; Muranen et al, 2016 ; Cao et al, 2019 ). Our WB results showed that HSG significantly reduced the expression levels of key factors, such as p-Akt and p-ERK, in the above pathways after treating either type of LC cells.…”