Research Article Mir-31 Functions As an Oncomir Which Promotes Epithelial-Mesenchymal Transition Via Regulating BAP1 in Cervical Cancer
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Hindawi BioMed Research International Volume 2017, Article ID 6361420, 12 pages https://doi.org/10.1155/2017/6361420 Research Article miR-31 Functions as an Oncomir Which Promotes Epithelial-Mesenchymal Transition via Regulating BAP1 in Cervical Cancer Nan Wang,1 Yong Li,2 andJianhongZhou1 1 Laboratory of Molecular Biology, College of Life Science, Jiaying University, Meizhou 514015, China 2Key Laboratory of Molecular Biophysics of the Ministry of Education, College of Life Science and Technology, Center for Human Genome Research, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074, China Correspondence should be addressed to Nan Wang; [email protected] Received 16 May 2017; Accepted 29 August 2017; Published 11 October 2017 Academic Editor: Stephen H. Safe Copyright © 2017 Nan Wang et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. MicroRNA-31 (miR-31) functions as tumor suppressors or oncogenes that are involved in tumor behavior. However, the function of miR-31 in cervical carcinogenesis remains unclear. The aim of this study was to validate the potential role of miR-31 and BRCA1- associated protein-1 (BAP1) on regulating epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) in cervical cancer. In the present study, qRT- PCR assay revealed that the expression of miR-31 was upregulated in human cervical cancer cells and clinical tissues. Results of wound healing and cell migration assay revealed that knockdown of miR-31 inhibited cell metastasis and migration. Bioinformatic and dual-luciferase reporter gene assay showed that BAP1 was the direct target of miR-31. Furthermore, the results revealed that miR-31 promoted proliferation and EMT in cervical cancer cells and accelerated the development of tumor growth in vivo xenograft experiment by inhibiting BAP1 expression. Overall, these results highlight an important role of miR-31 functioning as an oncomir which could promote EMT in cervical cancer via downregulating BAP1 expression. Thus, downregulation of miR-31 could bea novel approach for the molecular treatment of cervical cancers and other malignancies. 1. Introduction MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are a class of single-stranded, noncoding RNAs (∼22 nucleotides in length), which binds to Cervical cancer, a common malignancy in gynecology, is the 3 untranslated region (3 UTR) of target gene, leading to thefourthleadingcauseofcancer-relateddeathsinfemale mRNA degradation or translational repression [3, 4]. Recent worldwide [1]. Although the major risk factor causing cervical evidences recognized that aberrant miRNAs expression is cancer is persistent infection with high-risk human papillo- associated with cell malignant transformation, especially in maviruses (HPVs), accumulating evidences have shown that tumorigenesis and tumor development [5, 6]. The specific HPVs infection alone is insufficient to cause the malignant expressionofmiRNAsineachcancertypemayserveasa transformation and there may be other genetic alterations in biomarker for cancer diagnosis and prognosis or even as cervical carcinogenesis [2]. Even though the overall survival therapeutic target. miRNAs function as oncogenes or tumor rate of cervical cancer cases was increased owing to surgery, suppressors that can suppress multiple tumor suppressor chemotherapy, and/or radiotherapy, the prognosis of cervical genes or oncogenes during carcinogenesis [7]. Among these cancer patients remains poor. Metastasis and invasion are the miRNAs, miR-31 may function as an oncogene or a tumor main causes of death in cervical cancer cases; however, the suppressor depending on the cellular contexts [8–11]. To date, molecular mechanisms of metastasis and invasion in cer- miR-31 has been reported as upregulated in cervical cancer, vical carcinogenesis are still poorly understood. Finding which implies that miR-31 may serve as an onco-miRNA novel metastases-related genes and exploring their molecular participating in the development of cervical cancer [12]. mechanismareofgreatsignificance. Mounting investigations have indicated the essential role of 2 BioMed Research International epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) in the progression Table 1: Correlation of miR-31 expression level and clinicopatholog- of human cancers [13–15]. EMT is under the control of ical data. miRNAs network [16]. Whether miR-31 can induce EMT or Clinicopathological miR-31 expression value other malignant transformation in cervical cancer remains parameters =31 =31 unknown. Low ( )High( ) BRCA1-associated protein-1 (BAP1) is a deubiquitinating Age (years) enzyme, which has been reported to correlate with numerous ≤40 13 16 cellular processes. Overexpression of BAP1 can suppress >40 18 15 0.475 tumor growth in mouse xenografts [17]. In NSCLC, high Tumor size BAP1 expression was associated with a lack of lymph node ≤5cm 17 15 metastasis [18]. Yu et al. found that BAP1 was a target of miR- > 31 and inhibited lung cancer progression [19]. However, there 5 cm 14 16 0.753 has very little research on the role of BAP1 in cervical cancer Lymph node metastasis and the relationship between miR-31-BAP1 and EMT has not No 19 10 ∗ yet been reported. Yes 12 21 0.007 In this study, we first identified that miR-31 expression is FIGO stage inversely correlated to the expression of BAP1. BAP1 was a IB 22 8 direct target of miR-31; downregulation of BAP1 by miR-31- 0∗ induced EMT in cervical cancer. Therefore, our study clari- IIA 9 23 0.00 fied previously unidentified prometastatic roles of miR-31 in Vascular invasion cervical cancer and miR-31-BAP1 pathway might be a new No 24 14 ∗ potential target for therapy in cervical metastasis. Yes 7 17 0.000 Stromal invasion 2. Materials and Methods ≤2/3 25 5 > 0∗ 2.1. Patient Samples and Cell Culture. Cervical cancer sam- 2/3 6 26 0.00 ples were collected from Medical College of Jiaying Uni- Differentiation versity, China. Both of the carcinomas and normal adjacent Well 15 12 tissues were collected. The clinicopathologic information of Poor 16 19 0.174 thepatientsislistedinTable1.Thisstudywasapprovedby Peritoneal metastasis local institutional review boards on human subject research No 18 10 and in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki. Written informed consent was obtained from all study participants. Yes 13 21 0.128 ThehumancervicalcancercelllinesHeLa,HaCaT,and Histological type C33A were obtained from Chinese Center for Type Culture Serous 14 23 ∗ Collection (Shanghai, China) and grown in Dulbecco’s mod- Others 17 8 0.027 ified Eagle’s medium supplemented with 10% fetal bovine ∗ <0.05 ∘ . serum (FBS; Gibco Life Technologies) at 37 Cinahumidified 5% CO2/95% air atmosphere. miR-31-p-R GCCCAAGCTTCAGTTCCAAGTTAC- 2.2. MicroRNA Transfection. The human cervical cancer cells AGGAGAATACTATGA. were seeded at 6-well plate and transfected with miR-31, miR- 31 negative control (miR-NC), miR-31 inhibitor (anti-miR- 2.3. RNA Extraction and RT-PCR. Total RNA was extracted 31), or miR-31 inhibitor negative control (anti-miR-NC) using from cells using Trizol reagent (Invitrogen Life Technologies). Lipofectamine 2000 (Invitrogen) on the following day when The concentrations of RNA were determined using a Nan- the cells were approximately 60–70% confluent, following oDrop ND-1000 instrument (ThermoFisher, Waltham, MA, ∘ the manufacturer’s instructions. The miRNAs were purchased USA) and aliquots of the samples were stored at −80 C. The from RiboBio (RiboBio Co., Guangzhou, China). The full real-time PCR was performed as reported previously [12]. lengthhumanBAP1plasmidandemptyplasmidwhich served as the negative control were purchased from Invit- 2.4.ProteinExtractionandWesternBlotAnalysis. All cells rogen. The cells were harvested 48 h after transfection and were rinsed with PBS and lysed with RIPA Lysis buffer subjected to analysis by quantitative RT-PCR or West- (Beyotime, China) supplemented with a Protease and Phos- ern blot. The sequences of BAP1 used were listed as fol- phatase Inhibitor Cocktail (Thermo Scientific 78440) on ice lows: (si-BAP1#1: 5 -CCGUGAUUGAUGAUGAUAUTT- for 30 min. Cell lysates were centrifuged for 10 min (12000, ∘ 3 (sense); si- BAP1#2: 5 -CGGCCUUUCUAGACAAUC- 4 C), the precipitation was collected, and then total protein ATT-3 (sense); and si-BAP1#3: 5 -GGCUGAGAUUGC- concentration was determined using BCA Protein Assay AAACUAUTT-3 (sense). Primer sequences of miR-31 were Kit (Beyotime, China). Proteins were separated by 12% as follows: miR-31-p-F CCGGACGCGTGCACAAAAGTT- SDS-PAGE and then transferred to polyvinylidene fluoride ATACATAATGTCATTATTCTTATG (PVDF) membrane (Millipore, Boston, MA, USA). The BioMed Research International 3 membranes were blocked in 5% nonfat milk for 2 h at room Solution (Fisher Scientific, USA). Images were captured using temperature and incubated with the primary anti-BAP1, anti- microscope and average migrating cells from six independent E-cadherin, anti-N-cadherin, anti-vimentin antibody, and fields were counted. anti-GAPDH antibody. The membranes were washed for threetimesandthenincubatedwithsecondaryantibody 2.10. In Vivo Xenografts. Four-week-old female BALB/c nude for 2 h at room temperature. The signals were detected with mice were purchased from Shanghai SLAC Laboratory Ani- ECL Western Blotting Substrate (ThermoFisher, Waltham, mal, Co., Ltd. Mice were divided into two groups (=5); 5 × 6 MA,USA)andproteinbandintensitywasmeasuredusing 10 HeLa cells in which BAP1