MicroRNAs involved in regulating epithelial–mesenchymal transition and cancer stem cells as molecular targets for cancer therapeutics. Cancer Gene Therapy 2012; 19(11):723-30), we have therefore further investigated the potential molecular roles of miR-216a/217 in the development of resistance to sorafenib in HCC cancer
cells. Our results demonstrated that the over-expression of miR-216a/217 acted as a positive feedback regulator for the TGF-β pathway and the canonical pathway involved in the activation of the PI3K/Akt signaling in HCC cells (Fig. 6A). In addition, the activation of TGF-β and PI3K/Akt signaling Selleckchem AZD3965 pathways in HCC cells resulted in the acquired resistance click here to sorafenib (Fig. 6B). In comparison, blocking the activation of TGF-β pathway overcame miR-216a/217-induced sorafenib resistance (Fig. 6C and 6D) and decreased the metastatic ability of HCC cells in a mouse model (Fig. 6E and 6F). We concluded that over-expression of miR-216a/217 activated the PI3K/Akt and TGF-β pathways by targeting PTEN and SMAD7, contributing to hepatocarcinogenesis and tumor recurrence (Fig. 7). Figure S2. (A and B) Expression of epithelial marker E-cadherin and mesenchymal marker Vimentin in a panel of liver cancer cell lines. Epithelial HCC cells such as HepG2
and PLC/PRF/5 gave high expression of E-cadherin and low expression of vimentin while HCC cells with mesenchymal phenotype such as SNU-449 and HLE demonstrated low expression of
E-cadherin and high expression of vimentin (P<0.05). (C and D) RT-qPCR was employed to validate the significant increase of miR-216a and miR-217 in stably-transfected HepG2-miR-216a/217 and PLC/PRF/5-miR-216a/217 MCE公司 cells. (E) HepG2-miR-216a/217 and PLC/PRF/5-miR-216a/217 stably-transfected cells demonstrated significant morphological change from an epithelial cobblestone phenotype to an elongated fibroblastic phenotype, indicative of EMT. Figure S3. Silencing of miR-216a and 217 in the HLE, mesenchymal phenotype, HCC cells. Antagomir-miR-216a/217 was transfected into HLE cells. (A) Expression of miR-216a and miR-217 was examined by qRT-PCR and significant silencing of miR-216a/217 was demonstrated. (B) A dramatic morphological change from mesenchymal to epithelial transition was observed. (C) Up-regulation of E-cadherin, an epithelial biomarker and the reduced expression of vimentin, a mesenchymal biomarker, was detected with the simultaneous increased in the expression of SMAD7 and PTEN was also observed.Figure S4. Effects of miR-216a/217 on the proliferation and apoptosis of liver cancer cells.