MiR-367 regulates cell proliferation and metastasis by targeting metastasis-associated protein 3 (MTA3) in clear-cell renal cell carcinoma

// Dexin Ding 1, 2, * , Yue Zhang 3, * , Lin Wen 3 , Jiangbo Fu 3 , Xue Bai 3 , Yuhua Fan 4 , Yuan Lin 3 , Hongshuang Dai 2 , Qiang Li 2 , Yong Zhang 3 and Ruihua An 1 1 Department of Urology, The First Affiliated Hospital of The Harbin Medical University, Harbin 150001, China 2 Department of Urology, The Affiliated Tumor Hospital of The Harbin Medical University, Harbin 150001, China 3 Department of Pharmacology, State-Province Key Laboratories of Biomedicine-Pharmaceutics of China, Key Laboratory of Cardiovascular Research, Ministry of Education, College of Pharmacy, Harbin Medical University, Harbin 150081, China 4 Department of Biotechnology and Pharmaceutics, College of Pharmacy, Harbin Medical University-Daqing, Daqing 163319, China * These authors have contributed equally to this work Correspondence to: Ruihua An, email: anruihua@qq.com Yong Zhang, email: hmuzhangyong@hotmail.com Keywords: miR-367, MTA3, ccRCC, proliferation, metastasis Received: March 06, 2017      Accepted: May 22, 2017      Published: June 27, 2017 ABSTRACT Clear-cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC) is an aggressive and malignant kidney cancer which has the worst prognosis. Although microRNAs (miRNAs) have recently been identified as a novel class of regulators in oncogenesis and metastasis, there are few studies on their participation in ccRCC. In the present study, we observed that miR-367 expression was increased in both human ccRCC tissues and cell lines. Cell proliferation was evaluated by MTT assay and 5-Ethynyl-2′-deoxyuridine (EdU) assay kit, which indicated that inhibition of miR-367 could suppress the ccRCC proliferation. Forced expression of miR-367 substantially induced cell migration and invasion evidenced by wound-healing and transwell assays, and this carcinogenesis could be abolished by miR-367 inhibitor treatment. Further analysis identified Metastasis-Associated Protein 3 (MTA3) as a direct target of miR-367. QRT-PCR and western blot results indicated the correlative expression of miR-367 and MTA3 in ccRCC tissue samples. Overexpression of MTA3 reversed miR-367-induced cell proliferation, migration and invasion. Our data uncovered a novel molecular interaction between miR-367 and MTA3, indicating a therapeutic strategy of miR-367 for ccRCC.