Activin and TGFβ regulate expression of the microRNA-181 family to promote cell migration and invasion in breast cancer cells

•Activin and TGFβ induce miR-181 expression in human breast cancer cells.•Activin and TGFβ induce miR-181 in a broad range of cancer cell types.•miR-181 modulation does not affect activin and TGFβ tumor suppressive effects.•miR-181 is required for migration and invasion in breast cancer.•miR-181 is a novel target for activin.

MicroRNA-181 (miR-181) is a multifaceted miRNA that has been implicated in many cellular processes such as cell fate determination and cellular invasion. While miR-181 is often overexpressed in human tumors, a direct role for this miRNA in breast cancer progression has not yet been characterized. In this study, we found this miRNA to be regulated by both activin and TGFβ. While we found no effect of miR-181 modulation on activin/TGFβ-mediated tumor suppression, our data clearly indicate that miR-181 plays a critical and prominent role downstream of two growth factors, in mediating their pro-migratory and pro-invasive effects in breast cancer cells miR-181 acts as a metastamir in breast cancer. Thus, our findings define a novel role for miR-181 downstream of activin/TGFβ in regulating their tumor promoting functions. Having defined miR-181 as a critical regulator of tumor progression in vitro, our results thus, highlight miR-181 as an important potential therapeutic target in breast cancer.