Triiodothyronine Promotes Cell Proliferation of Breast Cancer via Modulating miR-204/Amphiregulin

Breast cancer (BC) severely threatens women’s life, and Triiodothyronine (T3) shows a positive role on BC cell proliferation, while the potential mechanism underlying it is still unclear. T3 was used to stimulate BC cell lines MCF-7 and T47-D. Real-time PCR was performed to determine the expression of miRNAs, while western blot was used to measure protein expression of Amphiregulin (AREG), AKT and p-AKT. The interaction between miR-204 and AREG was determined using luciferase reporter assay. MTT was performed to detect cell viability. The expression of miR-204 was decreased, while AREG and p-AKT was increased in T3 stimulated BC cell lines. T3 stimulation promoted cell viability. miR-204 targets AREG to regulate its expression. T3 promoted expression of AREG and p-AKT, while miR-204 overexpression reversed the effect of T3, however, pcDNA-AREG transfection abolished the effect of miR-204 mimic. T3 promoted cell viability of BC cells via modulating the AKT signaling pathway. The detailed mechanism was that the down-regulated miR-204 that induced by T3 stimulation promoted the expression of AREG, the up-regulated AREG activated AKT signaling pathway, while the activated AKT signaling promoted cell proliferation.