MicroRNA-214 inhibits the proliferation and invasion of lung carcinoma cells by targeting JAK1.

Increasing evidence suggests that microRNAs (miRNAs) play a crucial role in the pathogenesis of tumor. In this study, miR-214 was found to be significantly down-regulated in lung tumor tissues and lung cell lines. From the gain-of-function experiment results, we found that ectopic expression of miR-214 in lung cancer cell lines significantly inhibited cell growth, as evidenced by cell viability and colony formation assays, and suppressed tumor growth in vivo. Besides, further investigations showed that miR-214 inhibited cell migration and invasion. The luciferase activity assay revealed that oncogene Janus kinase 1 (JAK1) was a direct target gene of miR-214, and its expression was inversely correlated with that of miR-214. Altogether, our findings demonstrated that miR-214 plays a pivotal role in lung cancer by inhibiting cell proliferation, invasion and migration by targeting oncogenic JAK1, and thus, miR-214 may provide a new potential therapeutic target in lung cancer.