MiR-876-5p acts as an inhibitor in hepatocellular carcinoma progression by targeting DNMT3A.

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the biggest challenges that human beings faced with in 21st century. Previous researches have revealed that miRNAs can serve as regulators in various cancers. MiR-876-5p, a member of miRNA family, has been studied in lung cancer for its anti-oncogenic function. However, the exact function of it is not reported in HCC. Our study aims to find out the effects of miR-876-5p expression on HCC progression. Two HCC cells were chosen to do functional assays after miR-876-5p expression was detected in cell lines by qRT-PCR. HepG2 cell was transfected with miR-876-5p mimics, whereas LM3 cell was transfected with miR-876-5p inhibitors. Next, cell activities of these two indicated cells were analyzed by means of MTT assay, colony forming assay, transwell migration assay and western blot analysis. Consequently, we found that miR-876-5p could inhibit both cell proliferation and metastasis. Moreover, we found out a target gene (DNMT3A) of miR-876-5p by performing bioinformatics analysis, dual luciferase reporter assay and biotin-avidin pull-down assay. Finally, rescue assays were carried out in HepG2 cells. We found that DNMT3A could reverse miR-876-5p mimics-induced inhibition. Therefore, we concluded that miR-876-5p suppressed hepatocellular carcinoma progression by targeting DNMT3A.