miR-101a targeting EZH2 promotes the differentiation of goat skeletal muscle satellite cells

miR-101a promotes the differentiation of goat skeletal muscle satellite cells (SMSCs), as we previously reported, but the underpinning mechanism remains to be illuminated. In this study, we predicted the target gene of miR-101a by employing online softwares PicTar, TargetScan and miRanda, and found that enhancer of zeste homologue 2 (EZH2) was targeted by miR-101a. Further we identified that EZH2 contained miR-101a binding sites at its 3'UTR by using the dual-luciferase reporter assay system. In addition, we showed that during SMSC differentiation, the downregulated levels of EZH2 mRNA and protein were accompanied by increasing miR-101a expression via qRT-PCR and Western blot. Additionally, the expression of EZH2 significantly increased (P<0.01) when miR-101a was suppressed, whereas overexpressing miR-101a almost had no effect on EZH2 expression (P>0.05). These data demonstrated that miR-101a promotes SMSC differentiation directly through EZH2, which provides a theoretical reference for further elucidating the mechanism of miR-101a in SMSC differentiation.