miR-28-5p promotes the development and progression of ovarian cancer through inhibition of N4BP1.

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) play important roles in transcriptional regulation by targeting the 3'-UTR of target genes which participate in various biological processes. We aimed to investigate the potential role of miR-28-5p in the process of ovarian cancer development through regulating N4BP1. We found that the mRNA expression level of miR-28-5p was significantly increased in ovarian cancer tissues in comparison with adjacent ovarian tissues by qRT-PCR (P<0.0001). We established that miR‑28‑5p promoted the progression of ovarian cancer cell proliferation using colony forming assay and MTT assay. Wound healing assay and the migration and invasion assay showed that miR‑28‑5p accelerated the migration and invasion abilities of ovarian cancer cells. Simultaneously, we showed that miR‑28‑5p promoted ovarian cancer cell cycle, and inhibited apoptosis by flow cytometry in vitro. Furthermore, the results showed that miR‑28‑5p promoted the growth of ovarian tumor by tumor formation assay in vivo. The results of western blot analysis indicated that miR‑28‑5p promoted the protein expression level of F-actin. Western blot analysis also demonstrated that miR‑28‑5p promoted the progress of epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) in ovarian carcinoma cells. In addition, we found that miR‑28‑5p downregulated N4BP1 mRNA and protein expression by qRT-PCR and western blot analysis in human ovarian cancer. Therefore, our study indicated that miR‑28‑5p promoted the progression of ovarian cancer cell cycle, proliferation, migration and invasion, inhibited apoptosis, and induced the process of EMT through inhibition of N4BP1 in vitro. Moreover, miR‑28‑5p promoted the growth of ovarian tumor in vivo.