MiR-19a promotes epithelial-mesenchymal transition through PI3K/AKT pathway in gastric cancer

It has been reported that miR-19a was up-regulated in gastric cancer (GC), playing an oncogenic role. However, the underlying mechanism is still unknown. Therefore, in our present study, we investigated the role of miR-19a in gastric tissues as well as 2 GC cell lines. In vivo in clinical tissue level, we have detected basal expression level of miR-19a using real-time reversal transcriptional PCR (RT-PCR); in addition, the relevance between expression of miR-19a and clinic-pathological information was also analyzed. In vitro in cell line level, miR-19a was ectopically expressed using over expression and knock-down strategy. It was found that the overexpression of miR-19a was significantly associated with metastasis of GC and inferior overall prognosis on clinical tissue level; that promotes the proliferation, migration and invasion; and that overexpression of miR-19a can promote the epithelial-mesenchymal transition through activating PI3K/AKT pathway. Blocking the PI3K/AKT pathway could cancel the effect of miR-19a. All together, our results suggest that miR-19a could be used as a promising therapeutic target in the treatment of GC.