MicroRNA-1269b inhibits gastric cancer development through regulating methyltransferase-like 3 (METTL3)

ABSTRACT

The dysregulation of microRNAs (miRNAs) expression is relevant to the progression of many tumors. As reported, the abnormal expression of miR-1269b is pivotal in certain cancers’ progression. This work was designed to study the role and hidden mechanism of miR-1269b in gastric cancer (GC) progression. In this work, we proved that miR-1269b was lowly expressed in GC tissues and cell lines, which was associated with larger tumor size and lymph node metastasis. MiR-1269b overexpression repressed the multiplication, migration and invasion of GC cells while miR-1269b inhibition had the opposite effects. Methyltransferase-like 3 (METTL3) was identified as the direct target of miR-1269b in GC cells, and its overexpression reversed the inhibitory effect of transfection of miR-1269b mimics on GC cell viability, migration and invasion. On all accounts, these data indicated that miR-1269b inhibits GC progression via targeting METTL3.

Graphical abstract

KEYWORDS:

• Gastric cancer
• miR-1269b
• METTL3
• proliferation
• metastasis

Highlights

1. MiR-1269b is down-regulated in GC tissues and cells.

2. The low expression of miR-1269b is related to larger tumor size and lymph node metastasis of the patients.

3. MiR-1269b inhibits GC cell proliferation, migration and invasion by targeting METTL3.

Contribution of authors

Conceived and designed the experiments: WGD, JK;

Performed the experiments: JK, XH, WGD;

Data analysis: JK, XYZ, ML;

Drafted the manuscript: JK;

Reviewed and revised the manuscript: WGD, JK.

All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Interests of competing

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Statement of Ethics

In this study, collection of gastric cancer tissue samples and adjacent tissue samples were reviewed and approved by the Ethics Review Board of Renmin Hospital of Wuhan University. All protocols of experiments were in line with the Declaration of Helsinki.

Data Availability Statement

The data used to support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon request.

Acknowledgements

We thank Hubei Yican Health Industry Co., Ltd. for its linguistic assistance during the preparation of this manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.