MiR-182 is up-regulated and targeting Cebpa in hepatocellular carcinoma.

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are endogenous small non-coding RNAs that repress their targets at post transcriptional level. Existing studies have shown that miRNAs are important regulatory genes in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), as either tumor suppressors or oncogenes. MiR-122 is normally downregulated in HCC and regarded as a tumor suppressor. Recently miR-122 has been reported to be regulated by CEBPA, which is then involved in a novel pathway to influence proliferation of tumor cells. However it is unknown whether CEBPA is regulated by miRNAs in HCC. In this study, we find that miR-182 is upregulated in HCC model rat, and represses CEBPA in both rat and human. This further improves the current CEBPA/miR-122 pathway that controls the proliferation of tumor cells. These results suggest that miR-182 is a potential oncogene in HCC and could be used as a diagnostic marker and drug target of HCC.