Basic Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2015. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Apr 21, 2015; 21(15): 4564-4573
Published online Apr 21, 2015. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v21.i15.4564
MiR-19a promotes epithelial-mesenchymal transition through PI3K/AKT pathway in gastric cancer
Wei-Dong Lu, Yun Zuo, Zhen Xu, Min Zhang
Wei-Dong Lu, Yun Zuo, Zhen Xu, Min Zhang, Department of Oncology, Zhangjiagang First People’s Hospital, Suzhou University, Zhangjiagang 215600, Jiangsu Province, China
Author contributions: Zuo Y designed the research; Xu Z and Zhang M performed the research and analyzed the data; and Lu WD wrote the paper.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Yun Zuo, MD, Department of Oncology, Zhangjiagang First People’s Hospital, Suzhou University, No. 68 Jiyang Xilu, Zhangjiagang 215600, Jiangsu Province, China. ijo2014@163.com
Telephone: +86-512-56919153 Fax: +86-512-56919153
Received: August 29, 2014
Peer-review started: August 31, 2014
First decision: September 27, 2014
Revised: November 4, 2014
Accepted: December 5, 2014
Article in press: December 8, 2014
Published online: April 21, 2015
Abstract

AIM: To investigate the mechanism by which miR-19a is up-regulated in gastric cancer (GC), which plays an oncogenic role.

METHODS: In the present study, we investigated the role of miR-19a in gastric tissues as well as two GC cell lines. In vivo, we detected the basal expression level of miR-19a using real-time reverse transcription-PCR (RT-PCR), and the relevance between expression of miR-19a and clinicopathological information was analyzed. In vitro, miR-19a was ectopically expressed using overexpression and knock-down strategies.

RESULTS: Overexpression of miR-19a was significantly associated with metastasis of GC and inferior overall prognosis. However, no significant correlation was found between miR-19a expression and other characteristics such as age, gender, tobacco, alcohol or tumor size. Cell proliferation, migration and invasion assays showed that overexpression of miR-19a promoted the proliferation, migration and invasion, and that overexpression of miR-19a promoted the epithelial-mesenchymal transition through activating the PI3K/AKT pathway. Blocking the PI3K/AKT pathway could cancel the effect of miR-19a.

CONCLUSION: All together, our results suggest that miR-19a could be used as a promising therapeutic target in the treatment of GC.

Keywords: Gastric cancer, MiR-19a, PI3K-AKT, Epithelial-mesenchymal transition

Core tip: We found that miR-19a modulates epithelial-mesenchymal transition by activating the PI3K/AKT pathway. This miR-19a-PI3K/AKT axis sheds new light on the mechanisms of oncogenic roles of miR-19a in gastric cancer.