MicroRNA-15a inhibits the growth and invasiveness of malignant melanoma and directly targets on CDCA4 gene.

MicroRNAs can affect behaviors of tumor cells by modulating the expression of the target genes that involve tumor growth, invasiveness, and death. The goal of this research is to examine the effects of miR-15a on the proliferation and invasiveness of malignant melanoma cells in vitro, as well as the therapeutic effect of miR-15a in a mouse melanoma model. miR-15a displayed inhibitory effects on proliferation and invasiveness of several malignant melanoma cell lines. miR-15a also caused cell cycle arrest at G1/G0 phase. miRNA 15a downregulated the expressions of CDCA4 and AKT-3 in melanoma cell lines. In vivo, experiment showed that miRNA 15a significantly retarded the growth of melanoma tumors in the mouse model. The luciferase reporter assay demonstrated that miR15a can suppress gene expression through the binding site in the 3 'UTR of CACD4, which is a bona fide target of miRNA 15a. In conclusion, miRNA 15a suppressed the growth and invasiveness of melanoma cells, suggesting that miRNA 15a may represent a viable microRNA-based therapy against melanoma.