Lentiviral-mediated microRNA-26b up-regulation inhibits proliferation and migration of hepatocellular carcinoma cells

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is a frequently occurred malignancy worldwide with a high mortality. The treatment for HCC is still controversial. Emerging evidences have demonstrated that microRNAs (miRs) play a role in HCC. This study aims to investigate the effects of lentiviral-mediated miRNA-26b (miR-26b) on the proliferation and metastasis of HCC cells. The normal hepatic cell line HL-7702 and HCC cell lines HepG2 (without metastatic potential), SMMC-7721 (with low metastatic potential) and MHCC97H (with high metastatic potential) were purchased for our experiment. The lentiviral-mediated miR-26b overexpression (miR-26b-LV) and low expression (sh-miR-26b) were constructed to transfect the cells. The miR-26b expression and expressions of Karyopherin α-2 (KPNA2), matrix metalloproteinase 1 (MMP-1), MMP-7 and MMP-14 were determined by RT-qPCR and western blot analysis. The proliferation and metastasis of transfected HCC cells were detected by MTT and Transwell assay respectively. The miR-26b expressions were decreased significantly in MHCC97H cells. With lentiviral-mediated miR-26b overexpression, the proliferation and migration of HepG2, MHCC97H and SMMC-7721 cells were decreased significantly. The RT-qPCR and western blot analysis results revealed that the mRNA and protein expressions of KPNA2, MMP-1, MMP-7 and MMP-14 were decreased by lentiviral-mediated miR-26b overexpression. All the above indexes in the HepG2, MHCC97H and SMMC-7721 cells treated by sh-miR-26b exhibited opposite trends. These results show that overexpressed miR-26b could inhibit the proliferation and metastasis of HCC cells significantly, which provides a novel target and theoretical foundation for the treatment of HCC.