MiRNA-8073 targets ZnT1 to inhibit malignant progression of ovarian cancer

L. Zhang, Y.-H. Wang, L. Wang

Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, The Central Hospital of Wuhan, Wuhan, China. 521yagai@163.com

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• Oncology

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of microRNA-8073 on the malignant progression of ovarian cancer (OC) and whether the underlying mechanism is through the regulation of ZnT1 expression.

PATIENTS AND METHODS: Quantitative Real Time-Polymerase Chain Reaction (qRT-PCR) was used to detect the expression of microRNA-8073 in 50 tumor tissues and adjacent tissues of OC patients, and the relationship between microRNA-8073 expression and clinical indicators of OC was analyzed. Negative control group (NC) and microRNA-8073 overexpression group (microRNA-8073 mimics) were set in OC cell lines, and the transfection efficiency was further verified by qRT-PCR. In OC cell lines including SKOV3 and OVCAR3, the effects of microRNA-8073 on cell proliferation and apoptosis were analyzed by cell counting kit-8 (CCK-8), cell clone formation assay, and flow cytometry. Finally, the regulatory mechanism of microRNA-8073 on the downstream gene ZnT1 was explored by a recovery experiment.

RESULTS: QRT-PCR results revealed that microRNA-8073 expression in cancer tissue specimens of OC patients was significantly lower than that in corresponding normal tissues, and the difference was statistically significant. Compared with patients with high expression of microRNA-8073, NC group had low expression of microRNA-8073 and had a higher pathological stage and lower overall survival rate. In the OC cell lines including SKOV3 and OVCAR3, compared with the NC group, the cell proliferation ability of the microRNA-8073 mimics group was significantly decreased, while the apoptotic ability was significantly increased. Also, ZnT1 had high expression in OC cell lines and tissues and was confirmed negatively correlated with microRNA-8073 level. Meanwhile, the recovery experiment revealed that overexpression of ZnT1 can counteract the effect of microRNA-8073 mimics on OC cell proliferation and apoptosis so as to affect the malignant progression of OC.

CONCLUSIONS: We demonstrated that microRNA-8073 was significantly associated with the pathological stage and poor prognosis of OC. In addition, microRNA-8073 might inhibit malignant progression of OC by regulating ZnT1 expression.

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