Objective: In this study, we investigated the role of miR-300 in regulating cell proliferation and invasion of gastric cancer cells.
Methods: MicroRNA and protein expression patterns were compared between gastric cancer tissue and normal tissue and between two different prognostic groups. The up-regulation of miR-300 was confirmed by real-time reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction and its expression was analyzed in AGS gastric cancer cells.
Results: We observed that miR-300 expression was frequently and dramatically up-regulated in human gastric cancer tissues and cell lines compared with the matched adjacent normal tissues and cells. We further showed that transient and stable over-expression of miR-300 could promote cell proliferation and cell cycle progression. Moreover, p53, a key inhibitor of cell cycle, was verified as a direct target of miR-300, suggesting that miR-300 might promote gastric cancer cell proliferation and invasion by increasing p53 expression.
Conclusion: Our findings indicated that miR-300 up-regulation might exert some sort of antagonistic function by targeting p53 in gastric cancer cell proliferation during gastric tumorigenesis.
Keywords: AGS; gastric cancer; miR-300; p53; target therapy.