miR-190a inhibits epithelial-mesenchymal transition of hepatoma cells via targeting the long non-coding RNA treRNA.

treRNA is a long non-coding RNA (lncRNA) involved in cancer progression. In this study, we show that miR-190a can silence treRNA post-transcriptionally. Suppression of treRNA by miR-190a led to significant changes of mesenchymal-epithelial transition markers and impaired migration and invasion capability of hepatoma cells. TCGA data indicated that miR-190a exhibited lower expression in hepatoma tissues, especially from patients with vascular tumor invasion, compared to normal tissues. Our results reveal the involvement of miR-190a-treRNA axis in hepatoma progression and shed light on lncRNA-based cancer therapies for hepatoma patients at high risk of metastasis.