MicroRNA-375 is downregulated in pancreatic cancer and inhibits cell proliferation in vitro.

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) have emerged as important regulators in the development of pancreatic cancer and may be a valuable therapeutic application. Aberrant expression of microRNA-375 (miR-375) has been reported to be involved in development and progression in various types of cancers, but few studies have been conducted to determine its relationship with pancreatic cancer. Quantitative RT-PCR was used to detect the levels of miR-375 expression in pancreatic cancer tissue samples and cells. The cell growth rate of pancreatic cancer cells transfected with pre-miR-375 was examined by CCK8 assay. The effects of miR-375 on cell cycle and apoptosis were assessed by flow cytometry analyses. In this study, we found that the expression levels of miR-375 was significantly lower in pancreatic cancer tissues compared with nontumorous tissues. We found that miR-375 level in pancreatic cancer was associated with lymph nodes metastasis and clinical stage, and did not correlated with any other factors such as sex, age, position, tumor size, or histological grading. The CCK8 assay showed that that cells transfected with pre-miR-375 inhibited cell proliferation in Panc-1 and SW1990 cells. Flow cytometry analysis indicated that upregulation of miR-375 led to an increase in the percentage of cells in G0/G1 phase in the cell cycle distribution and induced cell apoptosis. Our research suggested that miR-375 has potential as a novel suppressor gene in pancreatic cancer and its downregulation may promote the progression of pancreatic cancer. Overexpression of miR-375 impacts cell proliferation, cell cycle distribution, and apoptosis of pancreatic cancer cells, miR-375 may play an important role in the novel therapeutic strategy for pancreatic cancer.