MicroRNA-224 targets SMAD family member 4 to promote cell proliferation and negatively influence patient survival.

ABSTRACT: MicroRNA-224 (miR-224) is frequently over-expressed in liver and colorectal cancers. We and others have previously described the role of miR-224 over-expression in cell proliferation in vitro but we have yet to identify the relevant miR-224 direct target. In this study, we further demonstrated that miR-224 up-regulation promotes cell proliferation using both in vitro assays and in vivo tumor growth models. We systematically screened for high confidence miR-224 targets by overlapping in silico predicted targets from multiple algorithms and significantly down-regulated genes in miR-224-expressing cells from whole genome expression microarrays. A total of 72 high confidence miR-224 targets were identified and found to be enriched in various cancer-related processes. SMAD family member 4 (SMAD

SUBMITTER: Wang Y 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3726696 | biostudies-literature | 2013

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature