title: MicroRNA-30a promotes invasiveness and metastasis in vitro and in vivo through epithelial-mesenchymal transition and results in poor survival of nasopharyngeal carcinoma patients.
abstract: Although microRNA-30a (miR-30a) has been shown to regulate cancer metastasis, the molecular mechanism has not yet been clearly elucidated in nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC). The present study was to investigate the miR-30a expression pattern and its potential functions and further to identify its target gene and corresponding clinical applications in NPC. MiR-30a was identified to be down-regulated in NPC primary tumors compared with metastatic tumors using quantitative real-time PCR. Furthermore, over-expression of miR-30a transfected with precursor increased the ability of metastasis and invasion of NPC tumor cells in vivo and in vitro. E-cadherin was screened as a putative target gene of miR-30a by computational algorithms. Luciferase reporter assays showed that over-expression of miR-30a directly reduced the activity of a luciferase transcript combined with the 3'-untranslated region (3'-UTR) of E-cadherin. Kaplan-Meier survival analysis and log-rank test were analyzed for 1077 NPC patients for overall survival, indicating that a high expression of E-cadherin was beneficial for NPC prognosis (P = 0.001). Importantly, NPC patients with high expression of E-cadherin had much lower risk of poor prognosis (hazard ratio = 0.757, P = 0.017) using multivariate analysis. In conclusion, miR-30a could play an important role in regulating NPC metastasis and potentially provide useful guidelines for individualized therapy.
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Oncology in South China, Department of Molecular Diagnostics, Sun Yat-sen University Cancer Center, Collaborative Innovation Center for Cancer Medicine, Guangzhou 510060, China.
authors.forename: Hai-Yun
authors.initials: HY
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Oncology in South China, Department of Molecular Diagnostics, Sun Yat-sen University Cancer Center, Collaborative Innovation Center for Cancer Medicine, Guangzhou 510060, China.
authors.forename: Yang-Yang
authors.initials: YY
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Oncology in South China, Department of Molecular Diagnostics, Sun Yat-sen University Cancer Center, Collaborative Innovation Center for Cancer Medicine, Guangzhou 510060, China.
authors.forename: Sha
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Fu
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Oncology in South China, Department of Molecular Diagnostics, Sun Yat-sen University Cancer Center, Collaborative Innovation Center for Cancer Medicine, Guangzhou 510060, China Department of Pathology, Guangzhou First Municipal People's Hospital, Guangzhou 510180, PR China.
authors.forename: Xiao-Pai
authors.initials: XP
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Oncology in South China, Department of Experimental Research, Sun Yat-sen University Cancer Center, Collaborative Innovation Center for Cancer Medicine, Guangzhou 510060, China.
authors.forename: Ma-Yan
authors.initials: MY
authors.lastname: Huang
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Oncology in South China, Department of Molecular Diagnostics, Sun Yat-sen University Cancer Center, Collaborative Innovation Center for Cancer Medicine, Guangzhou 510060, China.
authors.forename: Xiao
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Oncology in South China, Department of Molecular Diagnostics, Sun Yat-sen University Cancer Center, Collaborative Innovation Center for Cancer Medicine, Guangzhou 510060, China.
authors.forename: Qiong
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Shao
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Oncology in South China, Department of Molecular Diagnostics, Sun Yat-sen University Cancer Center, Collaborative Innovation Center for Cancer Medicine, Guangzhou 510060, China.
authors.forename: Ling
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Deng
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Oncology in South China, Department of Pathology, Sun Yat-sen University Cancer Center, Collaborative Innovation Center for Cancer Medicine, Guangzhou 510060, China.
authors.forename: Mu-Sheng
authors.initials: MS
authors.lastname: Zeng
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Oncology in South China, Department of Pathology, Sun Yat-sen University Cancer Center, Collaborative Innovation Center for Cancer Medicine, Guangzhou 510060, China.
authors.forename: Yi-Xin
authors.initials: YX
authors.lastname: Zeng
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Oncology in South China, Department of Molecular Diagnostics, Sun Yat-sen University Cancer Center, Collaborative Innovation Center for Cancer Medicine, Guangzhou 510060, China shaojy@sysucc.org.cn.
authors.forename: Jian-Yong
authors.initials: JY
authors.lastname: Shao
keywords: E-cadherin; hsa-miR-30a; metastasis; nasopharyngeal carcinoma