MicroRNA-548c-5p inhibits the proliferation of breast cancer cells through regulating Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathway
Authors: Q Wang
S-Z He
Journal: European review for medical and pharmacological sciences (2020)
Discipline: PHARMACOLOGY & TOXICOLOGY
Keywords: microRNA-548c-5p; breast cancer; Wnt/b-catenin signaling pathway; proliferation; diagnosis
Affiliations: Department of Oncology, Baoan Central Hospital of Shenzhen, the 5th Affiliated Hospital of Shenzhen University Health Science Center, Shenzhen, China. .

Abstract:  Objective: The aim of this study was to explore the function of microRNA-548c-5p in breast cancer (BCa) and the underlying mechanism. Our findings might help to provide a theoretical basis for the diagnosis and treatment of BCa. Patients and methods: Quantitative Real Time-Polymerase Chain Reaction (qRT-PCR) was used to detect the expression level of microRNA-548c-5p in BCa tumor tissues and para-cancerous tissues. The relationship between microRNA-548c-5p expression and clinical indicators of BCa was analyzed. Meanwhile, the expression of microRNA-548c-5p in the BCa cells was detected by qRT-PCR as well. MicroRNA-548c-5p overexpression and the knockdown models were constructed in BCa cell lines MCF-7 and MDA-MB-231. Subsequently, Cell Counting Kit-8 (CCK-8), colony formation and 5-ethynyl-2'-deoxyuridine (EdU) assays were performed to analyze the influence of microRNA-548c-5p on biological functions of BCa cells. Finally, the interaction between microRNA-548c-5p and Wnt/b-catenin signaling pathway was investigated. Results: QRT-PCR results showed that the expression level of microRNA-548c-5p in BCa tumor tissues was remarkably lower than that of adjacent tissues, and the difference was statistically significant (p&lt;0.05). Compared with patients with high expression of microRNA-548c-5p, the pathological stage of patients with low microRNA-548c-5p expression was significantly higher (p&lt;0.05). Similarly, microRNA-548c-5p overexpression remarkably decreased the proliferation ability of BCa cells in vitro. However, microRNA-548c-5p knockdown showed an opposite trend. In addition, Wnt1, a key factor in the Wnt/b-catenin signaling pathway, was found remarkably up-regulated in BCa cell lines and tissues. Wnt1 expression was negatively correlated with microRNA-548c-5p expression. Western Blotting results demonstrated that microRNA-548c-5p mimics remarkably down-regulated the levels of the proteins in the Wnt/b-catenin signaling pathway. Conversely, opposite results were observed in microRNA-548c-5p inhibitor group. The rescue experiments in the cells revealed that there might be a mutual regulation between microRNA-548c-5p and Wnt1, thereby together regulating the malignant growth of BCa. Conclusions: MicroRNA-548c-5p was lowly expressed in BCa tissues and cells, which was closely related to the pathological stage of BCa. In addition, microRNA-548c-5p significantly inhibited the proliferation of BCa cells via modulating Wnt/b-catenin signaling pathway. 

Retracted: No

PubPeer comments:
 Figure 3A. * Red boxes: The NC Migration panel appears to overlap with the NC Invasion panel. ![file] , 
 Figure 3A. * Cyan panels: The 0h T24 NC panel appears to show an overlap with the 0h UM-UC-3 NC panel * Magenta panels: The 0h T24 Si-cBPTF panel appears to show an overlap with the 0h UM-UC-3 Si-cBPTF panel ![file] , 
 Dear Dr. Bik Thank you very much for raising the concerns regarding the figures in our paper. We had double checked the original data and found out that the u201cUM-UC-3 migrationu201d backup images of u201cNCu201d was mistakably reused as the u201cUM-UC-3 invasionu201d images of u201cNCu201d in Fig. 3a. In Fig. 3c, the u201c0 hu201d image of u201cT24 cell lineu201d had an error of overlap with the u201c0 hu201d image of u201cUM-UC-3 cell lineu201d. We re-checked the data and found that two of the u201c0 hu201d back-up images of u201cT24 cell lineu201d was mislabeled as the u201c0 hu201d image of u201cUM-UC-3 cell lineu201d during the picture capturing. We are truly sorry for our mistakes in this matter. After communicating with Aging-us journal, the correction to the paper has been published on January 28, 2021. We apologize to the editors, reviewers and readers for any inconvenience that caused by this unintentional misplacement. The link to the correction is as follows: https: www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov pubmed 33510047 Thank you very much. Best regards. Junming ,