MicroRNA-616 promotes the migration, invasion and epithelial-mesenchymal transition of HCC by targeting PTEN.

MicroRNAs, which can post-transcriptionally regulate gene expression by binding to the 3'-untranslated regions of the mRNAs, have been found to be the critical regulators of the development and progression of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). The present study demonstrated for the first time that microRNA-616 (miR-616) was markedly upregulated in HCC tissues, and was associated with the recurrence and metastasis of HCC. Elevated level of miR-616 was correlated with adverse clinicopathological features and poor prognosis of HCC patients. Gain- and loss-of-function studies revealed that miR-616 could potentiate the migration, invasion and the epithelial-mesenchymal transtion (EMT) phenotype of HCC cells. Phosphatase and tensin homolog (PTEN), the predicted target of miR-616 by bioinformatics analysis, was confirmed as a direct downstream target of miR-616 through western blotting, luciferase reporter and immunohistochemical assays. Furthermore, we demonstrated that miR-616 exerted the promoting effects on EMT and metastatic ability of HCC cells through suppressing PTEN expression. Based on these results, we conclude that miR-616 is a promising prognostic biomarker of HCC and targeting miR-616 may be a potential option to prevent the progression of HCC.