Mir-373 affects human lung cancer cells' growth and its E-cadherin expression

The aims of this study was to elucidate whether the expression of E-cadherin can be affected by the recombinant has-mir-373 eukaryotic expression plasmid vector through tests in vitro, and to analyze the relationship between the expression of E-cadherin and tumor growth. According to the has-mir-373 sequence in miRBase database, two template DNA sequences were designed. The has-mir-373 sequence and a control sequence were synthesized and cloned into pGenesil-1 eukaryotic expression plasmid vector. The recombinant plasmids were transfected into human lung cancer A549 cells by liposome-mediated method. The mir-373 expression in A549 cells was detected by using real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction (real-time PCR). MTT (methyl thiazolyl tetrazolium) was used to analyze the growth of cancer cell cycle. RT-PCR and Western blotting were used to evaluate the levels of E-cadherin mRNA and protein expression, respectively. The expression of E-cadherin in cells was determined by immunocytochemistry. The mobility capability of transfected cells were evaluated by using wound healing assay in vitro. The fluorescent light was observed under fluorescent microscope. RT-PCR indicated that the mRNA of E-cadherin increased, and the Western blotting results also displayed that mir-373 promoted the expression of the E-cadherin protein. Compared with the control groups, MTT method and wound healing assay demonstrated that both the growth rate and migration of A549 cells transfected with the recombinant has-mir-373 eukaryotic expression plasmid was also decreased significantly (p < 0.001). The differences between the other two control groups were not significant (p > 0.05). The immunocytochemistry demonstrated a significant increase of E-cadherin protein levels in the cells transfected with mir-373, but not in the cells of the control group. Mir-373 could increase the expression levels of the E-cadherin and decrease the migration ability of human lung cancer A549 cells in vitro.