MicroRNA-139-3p suppresses tumor growth and metastasis in hepatocellular carcinoma by repressing ANXA2R

: The direct roles of miR-139-3p on hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) cell growth and metastasis remain poorly understood. We attempt to demonstrate the regulatory role of miR139-3p in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) progression and its mechanisms behind. Here, we show that miR-139-3p expression was significantly reduced in the HCC tissues compared to para-tumor tissues. Exogenous overexpression of miR-139-3p inhibited the migration and invasion of HCC cells, whereas down-regulation of miR-139-3p was able to induced HCC HepG2 and SNU-449 cell lines migration and invasion. In addition, miR-139-3p inhibited HCC growth and lung metastasis in vivo mouse model, which is mainly regulated by Annexin A2 Receptor (ANXA2R). Finally, we identified the expression of miR-139-3p was inversely correlated with ANXA2R expression in human HCC tissue. All these results demonstrated that miR-139-3p inhibited the metastasis process in HCC by down-regulating ANXA2R expression.