Dual-luciferase reporter analysis showed that coexpression

of miR-20a significantly inhibited the activity of firefly luciferase that carried wildtype but not mutant 3′UTR of Mcl-1 (Figure 4A and B), indicating that miR-20a may suppress gene expression throuth its binding site at 3′UTR of Mcl-1. Moreover, introduction of miR-20a diminished the expression of cellular Mcl-1 protein expression in HepG2 and SMMC-7721 cells (Figure 4C). Consistently, HCC tissues with low miR-20a showed much higher Mcl-1 expression, compared with those with high miR-20a expression by IHC detection (Figure 4D). These findings indicated that miR-20a might negatively regulate the expression of Mcl-1 by directly targeting its 3′UTR. Figure 4 MiR-20a

LXH254 ic50 directly regulates Mcl-1 expression. (A) Wild-type and mutant of putative miR-20a target sequences of Mcl-1 3′UTR. (B) MicroRNA luciferase reporter assay. Wild type and mutant miR-20a target sequences were fused with luciferase reporter and Selleckchem RAD001 cotransfected with miR-20a precusor or control oligo into HEK293T cells. The firefly luciferase activity of each sample was normalized to the Renilla luciferase activity. MiR-20a significantly suppressed the luciferase activity of wild-type Mcl-1 3′UTR (p = 0.027). (C) Effects of miR-20a overexpression on the level of cellular Mcl-1 in HepG2 and SMMC-7721 HCC cells without transfection or cells transfected with NC or miR-20a were analyzed by western blot. (D) Analysis of Mcl-1 and miR-20a expression in the same HCC tissue by IHC. Brown signal in IHC was considered as positive staining Astemizole for Mcl-1. Scale bar = 200 μm. Discussion Recently, attentions have focused on the role of microRNA regulation in essential mechanisms for cancer progression and metastasis,

including proliferation, invasion, migration, angiogenesis and apoptosis. In human cancers, previous studies have also shown that dysregulation of certain microRNAs are associated with clinical outcomes of pancreatic cancer [20], breast cancer [21], lung adenocarcinoma [22], gastric cancer [23], and HCC [24]. A few reports even demonstrated that the expression profiling of microRNAs may be a more accurate method of classifying cancer A-1155463 datasheet subtype than using the expression profiles of protein-coding genes [6, 25]. In the present study, we confirmed that the expression level of miR-20a was decreased in HCC tissues and three HCC cell lines. Loss expression of miR-20a was associated with poor survival and tumor recurrence in HCC patients who underwent LT. MiR-20a restoration could suppress cell proliferation by inhibiting cell cycle progression and inducing apoptosis in vitro. Moreover, we identified Mcl-1, which is an antiapoptotic member of Bcl-2 family, as a direct and functional target of miR-20a.