MiR-429 Suppresses Cell Proliferation, Migration and Invasion in Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma by Downregulation of TLN1

Background: miR-429 and TLN1 have been shown to affect the biological behaviours of many carcinomas. However, their effects in nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) are not yet clear. Here, we investigated their regulatory relationships and effects on NPC cells.

Methods: TargetScan was used to predict the regulatory relationships of miR-429 and TLN1 in NPC cells. Then, Western blotting and quantitative real-time PCR (qPCR) were performed to examine TLN1 levels, and qPCR was used to determine miR-429 levels in NPC cell lines with different metastatic characteristics (5-8F, CNE-2, CNE-1, 6-10B and NP69), to investigate whether TLN1 and miR-429 are correlated with the metastatic characteristics of these cells. Next, we upregulated or downregulated miR-429 in 5-8F and 6-10B cells, which have different tumourigenicity and transferability, and examined TLN1 expression by western blotting and qPCR after transfection. QPCR was also performed to confirm successful transfection of miR-429 mimic into 5-8F and 6-10B cells. Dual luciferase reporter gene assay was performed to investigate whether miR-429 regulates TLN1 by binding to its 3'UTR. After transfection, Cell Counting Kit-8 (CCK8) and IncuCyte were used to examine the proliferation of these cells, and wound-healing assay, Transwell migration assay, and invasion assays were performed to investigate the changes in migration and invasion after transfection.

Results: Western blotting and qPCR analyses showed that the protein level of TLN1 was negatively correlated with miR-429 in NPC cell lines (< 0.05), while the mRNA level showed no relation with miR429 expression (> 0.05). In addition, cells with high transferability showed high TLN1 expression at the protein level, while miR429 expression showed the opposite trend (< 0.05), but there were no differences at the mRNA level between the different cell lines. Overexpression of miR429 in 5-8F and 6-10B cells was accompanied by downregulation of TLN1 at the protein level (< 0.05), while there were no significant differences at the mRNA level (> 0.05). In addition, transferability, proliferation, and invasion were downregulated by miR429 overexpression (< 0.05). However, dual-luciferase reporter gene assay indicated that TLN1 was not a direct target of miR-429.

Conclusion: This study showed that miR-429 functions as a tumour suppressor in NPC by downregulation of TLN1, although the relationship is not direct.