The Interaction Between MiR-141 and LncRNA-H19 in Regulating Cell Proliferation and Migration in Gastric Cancer

Background/aims: Non-coding RNAs including miRNA and lncRNA had been reported to regulate gene expression and were both related to cancer progression. MicroRNA-141 (miR-141) has been reported to play a role in the epithelial to mesenchymal transition (EMT) process and H19 has also been demonstrated to promote malignancy in various cancers. We aimed to determine the correlation between miR-141 and H19 and their roles in gastric cancer in this study.

Methods: H19 and miR-141 expression were detected by qRT-PCR. By bioinformatic analysis and luciferase assay we examined the correlation between H19 and miR-141 in vitro.

Results: H19 expression was found to be inversely correlated to miR-141 expression in gastric cancer cells and tissues. H19 promotes malignancy including proliferation and invasion whereas miR-141 suppresses malignancy in human cancer cells. MiR-141 binds to H19 in a sequence specific manner, and suppresses H19 expression and functions including proliferation and invasion. MiR-141 could also regulate H19 target genes and miR-141 inhibitor restores H19 siRNA function, while H19 regulates miR-141 target gene ZEB1.

Conclusion: These results were the first to demonstrate that H19 and miR-141 could compete with each other and affect their target genes in gastric cancer, which provide important clues for understanding the key roles of lncRNA-miRNA functional network in cancer.