title: MicroRNA-mediated regulation of pancreatic cancer cell proliferation.
abstract: MicroRNAs (miRNAs) comprising 19-25 nucleotides are highly conserved small non-coding RNAs which regulate normal gene expression during development, cell proliferation and apoptosis by targeting mRNAs of protein-coding genes at the post-transcriptional level. Prevalent studies suggest that some human miRNAs, such as miRNA-16, are deregulated in human cancer and behave as tumor suppressors. The overall objective of our investigation was to assess whether miRNA-16 (miR-16) is involved in the regulation of critical genes, such as BCL2, that control the sensitivity of pancreatic cancer cells to apoptosis. This study showed that the ectopic overexpression of miR-16 may be therapeutically beneficial as is evidenced by impaired cell survival with concomitant attenuation of anti-apoptotic protein Bcl-2. Moreover, the luciferase reporter assay suggested that miR-16 post-transcriptionally regulates Bcl-2 expression in pancreatic cancer cells through the target sites of the 3' untranslated region of this gene.
authors.affiliation: Center for Biomedical Sciences, Department of Pharmacology, Case Comprehensive Cancer Center, MetroHealth Campus, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH.
authors.forename: Aruna
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Basu
authors.forename: Xin
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Jiang
authors.forename: Massimo
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Negrini
authors.forename: Subrata
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Haldar