Epigenetics in hepatocellular carcinoma: An update and future therapy perspectives

Table 1 MicroRNAs in hepatocellular carcinoma and their characteristics

Role	miRNA	Characteristics	Ref.
Viral replication	miR-141	Represses HBV expression and replication	[48]
	miR-122	Inhibits HBV replication	[50]
	miR-122	HCV RNA stabilization, propagation and replication	[51]
	miR-1	Increases HBV replication	[56]
Tumor supressor	miR-138	Down-regulated in HCC tissues. miR-138 can directly target cyclin D3	[61]
	miR-26a and miR-26b	Down-regulated in tumors compared to paired non-tumor tissues	[64]
	miR-125b	Arrests cell cycle progression, and inhibits migration and invasion by directly targeting the oncogene LIN28B2	[65]
	miR-140-5p	Suppresses tumor growth and metastasis by targeting TGFBR1 and FGF9	[66]
	miR-122a	Mice lacking the gene encoding miR-122a are viable but develop temporally controlled steatohepatitis, fibrosis, and HCC	[68]
Target tumor initiating cells	miR-181	Maintains the stemness of liver cancer stem cells, target liver differentiation transcription factors CDX2 and GATA6	[78]
	miR-150	Overexpression led to reduction of CD133+ cells	[80]
	miR-548c-5p	Ectopic overexpression inhibited proliferation, migration, and invasion of CD90+ HepG2 cells by down-regulating the expressions of β-catenin, Bcl-2, Tg737, Bcl-XL, and caspase 3	[81]

HBV: Hepatitis B virus; HCV: Hepatitis C virus; HCC: Hepatocellular carcinoma; miRNAs: MicroRNAs.