microRNA-324 plays an oncogenic role in bladder cancer cell growth and motility

Transl Cancer Res. 2020 Feb;9(2):707-716. doi: 10.21037/tcr.2019.12.01.

Abstract

Background: Despite advances in the treatment of bladder cancer (BC), patients with late-stage BC have a high mortality rate. microRNA is a small, nonprotein coding RNA, and a dysfunction in its expression is frequently strongly correlated with the prognosis of patients with cancer. Aberrant expression of miR-324 has been reported to contribute to human carcinogenesis. However, the role of miR-324 in BC remains unclear.

Methods: The expression levels of miR-324-5p and miR-324-3p were analyzed by analyzing The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database and real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) approach. The biological role of miR-324-5p and miR-324-3p were assessed in BFTC950 cells with miR-324-5p or miR-324-3p mimics transfection, respectively.

Results: In this study, we demonstrated that high expression levels of miR-324-5p and miR-324-3p were significantly correlated with poor survival of patients with BC. Furthermore, miR-324-5p expression significantly accelerated BC cell proliferation, colony formation ability, and invasion ability, whereas miR-324-3p expression slightly increased BC cell growth and motility.

Conclusion: Our data indicated that miR-324-5p and miR-324-3p play oncogenic roles in BC cells. This finding provides a new insight into potential therapeutic targets or putative biomarkers of BC.

Keywords: Bladder cancer (BC); miR-324-3p; miR-324-5p.