MiR-28-5p promotes the development and progression of ovarian cancer through inhibition of N4BP1

Abstract

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) play important roles in transcriptional regulation by targeting the 3'-UTR of target genes which participate in various biological processes. We aimed to investigate the potential role of miR-28-5p in the process of ovarian cancer development through regulating N4BP1. We found that the mRNA expression level of miR-28-5p was significantly increased in ovarian cancer tissues in comparison with adjacent ovarian tissues by qRT-PCR (P<0.0001). We established that miR-28-5p promoted the progression of ovarian cancer cell proliferation using colony forming assay and MTT assay. Wound healing assay and the migration and invasion assay showed that miR-28-5p accelerated the migration and invasion abilities of ovarian cancer cells. Simultaneously, we showed that miR-28-5p promoted ovarian cancer cell cycle, and inhibited apoptosis by flow cytometry in vitro. Furthermore, the results showed that miR-28-5p promoted the growth of ovarian tumor by tumor formation assay in vivo. The results of western blot analysis indicated that miR-28-5p promoted the protein expression level of F-actin. Western blot analysis also demonstrated that miR-28-5p promoted the progress of epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) in ovarian carcinoma cells. In addition, we found that miR-28-5p downregulated N4BP1 mRNA and protein expression by qRT-PCR and western blot analysis in human ovarian cancer. Therefore, our study indicated that miR-28-5p promoted the progression of ovarian cancer cell cycle, proliferation, migration and invasion, inhibited apoptosis, and induced the process of EMT through inhibition of N4BP1 in vitro. Moreover, miR-28-5p promoted the growth of ovarian tumor in vivo.