In recent years, a growing body of evidence has provided support for the important role of microRNAs (miRNAs) in the progression of human cancers. A recent study showed that a novel miRNA miR-3650 expression was significantly decreased in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). However, the precise role of miR-3650 in HCC have remained poorly understood. In this study, we found that miR-3650 expression was frequently decreased in HCC tissues. Low expression of miR-3650 is positively associated with tumor metastasis and poor survival of HCC patients. Forced expression of miR-3650 significantly inhibited the migration and epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) of HCC cells. Through bioinformatic analysis and luciferase assays, we confirmed that neurofascin (NFASC) is a directly target mRNA of miR-3650. Rescue experiment demonstrated that NAFSC overexpression could partially counteracted the inhibitory effect of miR-3650 in HCC metastasis and EMT. In conclusion, our findings are the first time to demonstrate that reduced expression of miR-3650 in HCC was correlated with tumor metastasis and poor survival. MiR-3650 repressed HCC migration and EMT by directly targeting NFASC. Our findings suggested that miR-3650 may serve as a potential prognostic marker and promising application in HCC therapy.
Keywords: EMT; NFASC; hepatocellular carcinoma; metastasis; miR-3650.