Inhibition of miR-20b reduces cell viability and colony formation in gastric cancer by targeting phosphatase and tensin homolog (PTEN) and thioredoxin-interacting protein (TXNIP) genes

Abstract

The aim of a study was to examine miR- 20b function in gastric car-cinogenesis by experimentally determining miRNA target- genes and impact to physiological cell processes in vitro and in vivo.GC cell lines (AGS, MKN28) and normal gastric tissue were ana-lyzed for expression of miR- 20b. Five potential target genes were selected for miR- 20b (EREG, FAT4, IRF1, TXNIP, PTEN). Cell viabil-ity, colony formation and proliferation, and cell migration was as-sessed. INS- GAS mice model was used to evaluate the miR- 20b alterations in vivo followingH. pylori infection with follow up to 50 weeks.Inhibition of miR- 20b expression significantly increasedIRF1, PTEN, TXNIP genes expression level in both cell lines. Protein expressionanalysis revealed that PTEN protein expression in AGS cell culture increased statistically significantly and TXNIP protein expression in-creased in MKN28 cell culture. Finally, miR-20b inhibition reduced cell viability in AGS cell line, number of colonies reduced dramati-cally in both cell lines. INS- GAS mice showed gender specific miR- 20b expression pattern following [...].