Open Access

ARTICLE

MicroRNA-188-5p targeting Forkhead Box L1 promotes colorectal cancer progression via activating Wnt/β-catenin signaling

JIALIN WU^1,2,#, ZEHONG CHEN³, WENWEI LIU^1,#, YONGXIN ZHANG¹, WEI FENG¹, YUJIE YUAN¹, JINNING YE¹, LIANG WANG¹, SHIRONG CAI¹, YULONG HE¹, SUIJING WU^4,*, WU SONG^1,*

1 Center of Gastrointestinal Surgery, The First Affiliated Hospital, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China
2 Department of Hepatobiliary and Pancreatic Surgery, Union Shenzhen Hospital, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, China
3 Department of Gastrointestinal Surgery, The Third Affiliated Hospital, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China
4 Department of Hematology, Guangdong General Hospital, Guangzhou, China

* Corresponding Authors: Suijing Wu, ; Wu Song,
# Jialin Wu, and Wenwei Liu contributed equally to this work

Oncology Research 2021, 29(2), 119-128. https://doi.org/10.32604/or.2022.03178

Received 19 December 2019; Accepted 27 August 2020; Issue published 13 July 2022

Abstract

Objective: MicroRNA-188-5p (miR-188) enhances oncologic progression in various human malignancies. This study aimed to explore its role in colorectal cancer (CRC). Materials and Methods: Human CRC tissues paired with normal tissues, and several CRC cell lines were utilized. Real-time quantitative PCR was applied to measure the expression of miR-188. Overexpression and knockdown were used to access the function of miR-188 and to investigate whether FOXL1/Wnt signaling mediates such function. The proliferation, migration and invasion of cancer cells were evaluated by CCK8, wound-healing and transwell assays, respectively. Whether FOXL1 acted as a direct target of miR-188 was verified by dual-luciferase reporter assays. Results: Levels of miR-188 were upregulated in CRC tissues than in paired-normal tissues, as well as in various CRC cell lines. High expression of miR-188 was strongly associated with advanced tumor stage, accompanied with significant tumor cell proliferation, invasion and migration. It was confirmed that FOXL1 played positive crosstalk between miR-188 regulation and downstream Wnt/β-catenin signaling activation. Conclusions: All findings indicate that miR-188 promotes CRC cell proliferation and invasion through targeting FOXL1/Wnt signaling and could be served as a potential therapeutic target for human CRC in the future.

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