574447

MIR146B

microRNA 146b;MIR146B;microRNA 146b

hsa-mir-146b

10q24.32

ncRNA

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are a class of endogenous, small non-protein coding single-stranded RNA molecules, which are crucial post-transcriptional regulators of gene expression. Previous studies have shown that miRNAs participate in a wide range of biological functions and play important roles in various human diseases including glioma. However, the role of miRNAs in mediating glioblastoma cell migration and invasion has not been elucidated. Using miRNA microarray, we identified miR-146b as one of the miRNAs that is significantly dysregulated in human glioblastoma tissue. We showed that miR-146b overexpression by transfection with the precursor miR-146b, or knock-down by Locked Nucleic Acid (LNA)-modified anti-miR-146b, has no effect on the growth of human glioblastoma U373 cells. However, precursor miR-146b transfection significantly reduced the migration and invasion of U373 cells, while LNA-anti-miR-146b transfection generated the opposite result. Furthermore, we discovered that a matrix metalloproteinase gene, MMP16, is one of the downstream targets of miR-146b. Taken together, our findings suggest that miR-146b is involved in glioma cell migration and invasion by targeting MMPs, and implicate miR-146b as a metastasis-inhibiting miRNA in glioma.

cancer cells often acquire a constitutively active nuclear factor-kappaB (NF-kappaB) program to promote survival, proliferation and metastatic potential by mechanisms that remain largely unknown. Extending observations from an immunologic setting, we demonstrate that microRNA-146a and microRNA-146b (miR-146a/b) when expressed in the highly metastatic human breast cancer cell line MDA-MB-231 function to negatively regulate NF-kappaB activity. Lentiviral-mediated expression of miR-146a/b significantly downregulated interleukin (IL)-1 receptor-associated kinase and TNF receptor-associated factor 6, two key adaptor/scaffold proteins in the IL-1 and Toll-like receptor signaling pathway, known to positively regulate NF-kappaB activity. Impaired NF-kappaB activity was evident from reduced phosphorylation of the NF-kappaB inhibitor IkappaBalpha, reduced NF-kappaB DNA-binding activity and suppressed expression of the NF-kappaB target genes IL-8, IL-6 and matrix metalloproteinase-9. Functionally, miR-146a/b-expressing MDA-MB-231 cells showed markedly impaired invasion and migration capacity relative to control cells. These findings implicate miR-146a/b as a negative regulator of constitutive NF-kappaB activity in a breast cancer setting and suggest that modulating miR-146a/b levels has therapeutic potential to suppress breast cancer metastases.

Breast cancer metastasis suppressor 1 (BRMS1) is a predominantly nuclear protein that differentially regulates expression of multiple genes, leading to suppression of metastasis without blocking orthotopic tumor growth in multiple human and murine cancer cells of diverse origins. We hypothesized that miR-146 may be involved in the ability of BRMS1 to supress metastasis because miR-146 expression is altered by BRMS1 and because BRMS1 and miR-146 are both associated with decreased signaling through the nuclear factor-kappaB pathway. BRMS1 significantly up-regulates miR-146a by 6- to 60-fold in metastatic MDA-MB-231 and MDA-MB-435 cells, respectively, and miR-146b by 40-fold in MDA-MB-435 as measured by real-time quantitative reverse transcription-PCR. Transduction of miR-146a or miR-146b into MDA-MB-231 down-regulated expression of epidermal growth factor receptor, inhibited invasion and migration in vitro, and suppressed experimental lung metastasis by 69% and 84%, respectively (mean +/- SE: empty vector = 39 +/- 6, miR-146a = 12 +/- 1, miR-146b = 6 +/- 1). These results further support the recent notion that modulating the levels of miR-146a or miR-146b could have a therapeutic potential to suppress breast cancer metastasis.