A pleiotropically acting microRNA, miR-31, inhibits breast cancer metastasis.

ABSTRACT: MicroRNAs are well suited to regulate tumor metastasis because of their capacity to coordinately repress numerous target genes, thereby potentially enabling their intervention at multiple steps of the invasion-metastasis cascade. We identify a microRNA exemplifying these attributes, miR-31, whose expression correlates inversely with metastasis in human breast cancer patients. Overexpression of miR-31 in otherwise-aggressive breast tumor cells suppresses metastasis. We deploy a stable microRNA sponge strategy to inhibit miR-31 in vivo; this allows otherwise-nonaggressive breast cancer cells to metastasize. These phenotypes do not involve confounding influences on primary tumor development and are specifically attributable to miR-31-mediated inhibition of several steps of metastasis, includi

SUBMITTER: Valastyan S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2766609 | biostudies-literature | 2009 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature