miR-203 inhibits the migration and invasion of esophageal squamous cell carcinoma by regulating LASP1

Abstract

The expression of microRNA-203 (miR-203) in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) tissues is remarkably lower than that in non‑ESCC tissues. We investigated how miR-203 could influence the development of ESCC cells. Our analyses revealed that miR-203 inhibited the migration and invasion of ESCC cells. Genome-wide gene expression data and target site inhibition assays showed that miR-203 appears to directly regulate LIM and SH3 protein 1 (LASP1). The knockdown of LASP1 resulted in inhibition of the migration and invasion of ESCC cells. Our results suggest that miR-203 and its target LASP1, may be associated with the progression of ESCC. In clinical ESCC specimens, the expression levels of miR-203, which were lower compared to those in normal tissues, were inversely correlated with the mRNA expression levels of LASP1. Moreover, we found that there was a significant correlation between the expression levels of miR-203 and the relapse‑free survival. The identification of a cancer network regulated by miR-203 could provide new insights into the potential mechanisms of the progression of ESCC.

Aberrant Expression of miR-20a and miR-203 in Cervical Cancer

“…In the recent study, miR-203 has significantly low expression in cancer tissues compared to non-tumor counterparts (Viticchiè et al, 2011;Takeshita et al, 2012;Gu et al, 2013), while there were up-regulation of miR-203 was observed in pancreatic adenocarcinomas and breast, cancers (Naoki et al, 2010;Madhavan et al, 2012), we think the differential expression of miRNAs may be the result of tissue-specific differences. Just as Baffa et al suggested (Baffa et al, 2009).…”

“…Just as Baffa et al suggested (Baffa et al, 2009). miR-203 was proved to be down-regulated in squamous cell carcinoma (Yuan et al, 2011;Boldrup et al, 2012;Takeshita et al, 2012). Expression profiling using quantitative real-time RT-PCR of 202 miRNAs was performed on micro-dissected highgrade CIN (CIN 2/3) tissues and compared to normal cervical epithelium, then Cheung TH found miR-203 could distinguished the high-grade CIN specimens from normal cervical epithelium (Cheung et al, 2012).…”

MicroRNA-203 inhibits the malignant progression of neuroblastoma by targeting Sam68

“…It can also target Hakai and inhibit the growth of human colon adenocarcinoma (28). Additionally, those genes involved in the regulation of cell proliferation, apoptosis, cell cycle progression, migration and invasion, are also the targets of miR-203, including Robo1, Kif5b, E2F3, LASP1, ASAP1, PKCα, BIRC5, Bmi-1 and DeltaNp63 (23)(24)(25)(26)(29)(30)(31)(32)(33). Whether these miR-203 targets are also involved in the development and progression of NB remains to be elucidated.…”

Circulating microRNA-203 predicts metastases, early recurrence, and poor prognosis in human gastric cancer

“…Considering the clinical challenge that a significant proportion of these patients are erroneously misdiagnosed using these conventional pathological criteria, incorporating more robust molecular biomarkers, such as the quantification of miR-203 expression in serum, followed by the preoperative selection of patients without lymph node metastasis, could promote minimally invasive treatment of early GC. MiR-203 is reported to function as a tumor-suppressive miRNA in many types of cancer studied in tissues and cell lines [28][29][30][31][32][33]. Ectopic expression of miR-203 in prostate cancer cell lines could influence proliferation, apoptosis, and migration [32], and overexpression of miR-203 in laryngeal carcinoma cells reduces cell viability and leads to cell-cycle arrest in G1 phase [31].…”