MiR-130a-3p was found to play tumor suppressor role in most human cancers, except for gastric cancer. However, in this study, we demonstrated that miR-130a-3p was significantly down-regulated in gastric carcinoma (GC) tissues compared with adjacent non-neoplastic tissues, and decreased miR-130a-3p expression was associated with shorter overall survival (OS) and was an independent prognostic factor for OS in GC patients. Over-expression of miR-130a-3p remarkably inhibited not only GC cell migration, invasion, and epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) in vitro, but also tumorigenesis and lung metastasis in the chick embryo chorioallantoic membrane (CAM) assay in vivo. Conversely, inhibition of miR-130a-3p resulted in opposite phenotype changes in GC cells. Furthermore, TBL1XR1 was identified as a direct target of miR-130a-3p, and reintroduction of TBL1XR1 into miR-130a-3p-transfected MGC-803 cells reversed the inhibitory effects of miR-130a-3p on GC cell migration, invasion and EMT. Taken together, our data suggested that miR-130a-3p suppressed aggressive phenotype of GC cells partially by direct targeting and decreasing TBL1XR1 and subsequent EMT process.
Keywords: EMT; TBL1XR1; gastric cancer; metastasis; miR-130a-3p.
© 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.