High-mobility group A1 proteins enhance the expression of the oncogenic miR-222 in lung cancer cells.

High-mobility group A1 (HMGA1) is a non-histone chromatin protein that has the ability to regulate the transcriptional activity of many genes. Overexpression of HMGA1 is associated with malignant cellular behavior in a range of human cancers but the underlying mechanism is largely unknown. Here we showed that in a cohort of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) tumors, HMGA1 overexpression was immediately associated with enhanced expression of an oncogenic miRNA, namely, miR-222. Chromatin immunoprecipitation (CHIP) assay revealed that HMGA1 directly binds to the proximal promoter of miR-222 in NSCLC cells. We further showed that HMGA1 silencing reduced miR-222 transcriptional activity, whereas forced HMGA1 expression increased it, indicating that miR-222 is directly regulated by HMGA1. Based on in silico prediction, one of the putative targets of miR-222 is phosphatase 2A subunit B (PPP2R2A) which inhibits Akt phosphorylation (p-Akt). We demonstrated that miR-222 inhibited protein expression of PPP2R2A in NSCLC cells by directly interacting with its 3'-UTR region, leading to an obvious increase of p-Akt. HMGA1 silencing augmented PPP2R2A protein expression and inhibited Akt signaling, resulting in significantly retarded cell growth response to IGF-I. These results suggested that HMGA1 is a positive regulator of miR-222, and HMGA1 overexpression might contribute to dysregulation of Akt signaling in NSCLC.