Quantitative proteomics and protein network analysis of A549 lung cancer cells affected by miR-206

MiR-206 acts as a potential tumor suppressor during carcinogenesis and a regulatory factor in osteoblasts differentiation, but its modulatory mechanism remains unclear. In this study, we used a quantitative proteomics method, difference gel electrophoresis (DIGE), to profile the protein variation in A549 lung cancer cells with and without miR- 206 transfection. We identified a total of 17 differently expressed proteins including 5 up-regulated and 12 down-regulated proteins affected by miR-206 in A549 cells. We further constructed a protein network linked 17 differently expressed proteins with 106 computationally predicted miR-206 targets, and identified 8 "hub" genes (CALR, CTSD, ENO1, HSPA5, CDC42, HSPD1, POLA1, and SMARCA4) within the network, which may represent important miR-206 functional gene targets. In conclusion, in this study, we identified several candidate functional target genes for miR-206, which is helpful to further explore its mechanisms during carcinogenesis and osteogenesis, and we also proposed a novel proteomic strategy to identify functionally important gene targets for microRNA.