Over-expression of microRNA-375 inhibits papillary thyroid carcinoma cell proliferation and induces cell apoptosis by targeting ERBB2.

MicroRNAs (miRs) played important roles in the cell proliferation, apoptosis and other biological processes in cancer. In the present study we found that miR-375 was significantly down-regulated in human papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC) tissues and cell lines. In this study we try to investigate the biological activity of miR-375 in human PTC cells and try to find the potential target of miR-375. Our study indicated that over-expression of miR-375 could inhibit the PTC cells proliferation and this inhibition was caused by the induction of cell apoptosis. In vivo animal study indicated that over-expression of miR-375 could significantly decrease the migration and invasion of human PTC cell in vivo. These results exhibit over-expression of miR-375 in human PTC cells could inhibit the process of human PTC. Further study demonstrated ERBB2 was a direct target of miR-375, over-expression of miR-375 decrease the both mRNA and protein expression of ERBB2 in human PTC cells. These data indicate miR-375 play important roles in the process and development of human PTC. These finds suggested that appropriate application of miR-375 regulation might be a new sight for the treatment of human PTC in the future.