Open Access

ARTICLE

MiR-16-5p plays an inhibitory role in human non-small cell lung cancer through Fermitin family member 2

JUNQI GUO^1,2,#, YUN YANG^1,2,#, WEI ZHAO^1,2, ZHONGHAI YAN³, XIA YANG⁴, YUNFEI YAN^1,2, RUIMIN HAO^1,2, JINXIA HU^1,2,*, FEI JIAO^1,2,*

1 Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Binzhou Medical University, Yantai, 264003, China
2 Key Laboratory of Tumor Molecular Biology in Binzhou Medical University, Yantai, 264003, China
3 Department of Neurology, Columbia University, New York, 10032, USA
4 Department of Cardiology, The People’s Hospital of Zhaoyuan City, Yantai, 265400, China

* Address correspondence to: Jinxia Hu, ; Fei Jiao,
# These authors contributed equally to this work.

BIOCELL 2021, 45(3), 627-638. https://doi.org/10.32604/biocell.2021.013496

Received 08 August 2020; Accepted 25 September 2020; Issue published 03 March 2021

Abstract

Increasing evidence indicates that aberrant expressions of some microRNAs are associated with cancer progression. However, the roles and biological mechanisms of miRNA-16-5p in human non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) are not to be well studied. Here, we validated that the expression of miR-16-5p was decreased significantly in NSCLC samples and cell lines. The correlation between the clinicopathological features of NSCLC and the miR-16- 5p expression showed that the expression of miR-16-5p in non-small cell lung cancer was linked with the advanced TNM stage, positive lymph node metastasis, with short overall survival (OS). Also, a negative correlation between miR-16-5p and Fermitin family member 2 (FERMT2) was observed, implying there may be a potential link about their regulation. The hypothesis was further confirmed by in-silico analysis and dual-luciferase reporter assay. Moreover, we demonstrated that the transfections of miR-16-5p mimics could alter some biological characteristics of NSCLC cells remarkably accomplished by the expression variance of FERMT2 in vitro and in vivo assays. Summarily, this study demonstrated that miR-16-5p, as a tumor suppression factor in NSCLC by targeting FERMT2, could serve as one promising biomarker in the prediction for NSCLC patients.

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