MicroRNA-153-3p suppress cell proliferation and invasion by targeting SNAI1 in melanoma

Malignant melanoma is one of the most common malignancies of the skin cancer and increasing evidences revealed that microRNAs (miRNAs) exert significant effects in melanoma. In the present study, the underlying function of microRNA-153-3p (miR-153-3p) in melanoma was investigated from different levels, including cell level, protein level and gene level. Our results showed that expression of miR-153-3p was lower in melanoma tissues and melanoma cells compared with the para-tumor tissue and normal melanocytes. The overexpression of miR-153-3p inhibited the cell proliferation and invasion, at the same time promoted cell apoptosis. Moreover, we identified that snail family transcriptional repressor 1 (SNAI1) is the direct target of miR-153-3p, and there is a negative correlation between miR-153-3p level and SNAI1 expression. In summary, we presented the evidences that miR-153-3p may act as a tumor suppressor by down-regulating the expression of SNAI1 in melanoma and miR-153-3p might be a potential biomarker in the diagnosis and treatment of malignant melanoma.