Characterization of microRNA expression in primary human colon adenocarcinoma cells (SW480) and their lymph node metastatic derivatives (SW620)

Abstract

Background and objective

Metastasis is the major cause of cancer-related deaths in patients with colon cancer, however, the exact molecular mechanism is unclear. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) play an important role in the pathogenesis and progression of cancer. Therefore, in this study, we aimed to identify differentially expressed miRNAs in two colon carcinoma cell lines: SW480, derived from primary colon carcinoma and SW620, derived from lymph node metastasis, which were obtained from the same patient.

Materials and methods

Three independent samples of cancer cells were collected from SW480 and SW620 cells, respectively. An miRNA microarray platform, miRCURY LNA™ microRNA array with 1,223 probes containing 3,000 capture probes, was used to determine the miRNA expression profiles of these two cell lines. Differentially expressed miRNAs were validated by quantitative reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR).

Results

The raw data were submitted to the Gene Expression Omnibus database (GSE72412). Thirteen miRNAs were differentially expressed between SW480 and SW620 cells, of which, seven miRNAs (hsa-miR-920, hsa-miR-636, hsa-miR-766-3p, hsa-miR-545-5p, hsa-miR-195-3p, hsa-miR-125a-3p, and hsa-miR-196b-3p) were found to be upregulated and six miRNAs (hsa-miR-3613-3p, hsa-miR-29b-3p, hsa-miR-1297, hsa-miR-141-5p, hsa-miR-200c-3p, and hsa-miR-141-3p) were found to be downregulated. Target analysis of the predicted miRNAs showed that these genes were primarily involved in protein binding, cell adhesion, and cancer metastasis. Furthermore, qRT-PCR validated the results of miRNA microarray.

Conclusion

This is the first systematic analysis of the differences of miRNAs between SW480 and SW620 cells. The results provide useful information to explore potential biomarkers of miRNAs for predicting colon cancer metastasis.

Keywords:

• microRNA
• colon cancer
• metastasis
• microarray

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by National Nature Science Foundation of China (Grant No 81172285) and Natural Science Foundation of Fujian Province, People’s Republic of China (Grant No 2018J01392 and 2018J01390).

Disclosure

The authors report no conflicts of interest in this work.