MiRNA-621 exerts tumor suppressor function in gastric adenocarcinoma by targeting AURKA/GSK-3β pathway
Abstract
Gastric adenocarcinoma is a major challenge to human health worldwide. Abnormal expression of miR-621 was found in many types of cancer. This research aimed to investigate the effects and detailed molecular mechanisms of miR-621 on gastric adenocarcinoma progression. The present study first showed that miR-621 was downregulated in gastric cancer patients, and its expression level was correlated with tumor size. MiR-621 overexpression inhibited viability, colony formation and proliferation of gastric cancer cells. AURKA was identified as a direct target of miR-621. AURKA knockdown induced decrease of p-GSK-3β/GSK-3β ratio and increase of p-β-catenin/β-catenin ratio which confirmed that AURKA positively regulated GSK-3β phosphorylation. AURKA knockdown also inhibited proliferation of gastric adenocarcinoma cells. AURKA expression was negatively correlated with miR-621 level. In addition, AURKA overexpression reversed the effect of miR-621 on the growth of cancer cells. Taken together, our results suggest that miR-621 is an important tumor suppressor in gastric cancer and could be a promising target for the cancer treatment.
Copyright (c) 2021 Xiao Han, Hongxue Liu, Xiaojun Tang, Yao Zhao

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Acta Biochimica Polonica is an open access quarterly and publishes four issues a year. All contents are distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. Everybody may use the content following terms: Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made, ShareAlike — If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you must distribute your contributions under the same license as the original. There are no additional restrictions — You may not apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits.
Copyright for all published papers © stays with the authors.
Copyright for the journal: © Polish Biochemical Society.