| Summary: | Melanoma with rapid progression towards metastasis has become the deadliest form of skin cancer. However, the mechanism of melanoma growth and metastasis is still unclear. Here, we found that miRNA-138 was lowly expressed and hypoxia-inducible factor 1α (HIF1α) was highly expressed in patients’ melanoma tissue compared with the paracancerous tissues, and they had a significant negative correlation (r=−0.877, P<0.001). Patients with miRNA-138low/HIF1αhigh signatures were predominant in late stage III/IV of melanoma. Further, bioinformatic analysis demonstrated that miRNA-138 directly targeted HIF1α. We found that the introduction of pre-miRNA-138 sequences to A375 cells reduced HIF1α mRNA expression and suppressed cell proliferation, migration and invasion. Overexpression of miRNA-138 or inhibition of HIF1α significantly suppressed the growth and metastasis of melanoma in vivo. Our study demonstrates the role and clinical relevance of miRNA-138 and HIF1α in melanoma cell growth and metastasis, providing a novel therapeutic target for suppression of melanoma growth and metastasis.
|
|---|
