MicroRNA-155 promotes gastric cancer growth and invasion by negatively regulating transforming growth factor-β receptor 2
Authors: Guoguang Ying
Shuang Li
Yajing Qu
Wu Sun
Yi Ba
Yueting Han
Haiyang Zhang
Yanjun Qu
Journal: Cancer science (2018)
Discipline: CLINICAL MEDICINE
Keywords: gastric cancer; growth; invasion; miR-155; transforming growth factor-β receptor 2.
Affiliations: Key Laboratory of Cancer Prevention and Therapy, Tianjin Medical University Cancer Institute and Hospital, National Clinical Research Center for Cancer, Tianjin's Clinical Research Center for Cancer, Tianjin, China.

Abstract:  Gastric cancer (GC) is one of the most common malignancies worldwide and has high morbidity and mortality rates. It is essential to elucidate the molecular events of GC proliferation and invasion, which will provide new therapeutic targets for GC. The inactivation of transforming growth factor-β receptor 2 (TGFβR2) correlates with cancer cell growth and metastasis, but the mechanisms underlying the downregulation of TGFβR2 expression remain unknown. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) act as post-transcriptional regulators and play a key role in the development of cancers. Bioinformatics analysis and luciferase reporter assays have shown that miR-155 directly binds to the 3'-UTR of TGFβR2 mRNA. In this study, we found that the TGFβR2 protein levels, but not mRNA levels, were downregulated in GC tissues, and the levels of miR-155 were significantly increased in GC tissues. We deduced that miR-155 was inversely correlated with TGFβR2 in GC cells. In vitro studies showed that overexpression of miR-155 in SGC7901 inhibited the expression of TGFβR2 and then promoted GC cell proliferation and migration, whereas miR-155 inhibitor showed opposite effects. In addition, the tumor-suppressing function of TGFβR2 was verified by using siRNA and TGFβR2 overexpressing plasmids. The results showed that miR-155 promotes cell growth and migration by negatively regulating TGFβR2. Thus, miR-155-regulated TGFβR2 as a potential therapeutic target in GC. 

Retracted: No

PubPeer comments:
 One of the images in the scratch assay (Figure 5) occurs in duplicate. The image to the right is identical, with the exception of a slightly different cropping and the lower black lines has been moved slightly. ![file] I urge the authors to find their raw data and to contact the journal about correcting the paper. , 
 Dear pubpeer visitor, We thank for your interest in our work and your thoughtful comments. We have inspected our raw data again more carefully. It turned out that the two images of pcDNA.NC group and pcDNA.TGFbR2 group (Figure 5E) were misused during the figure preparation. We have corrected it and made the new Figure 5E. We will contact to the journal to make a correction as soon as possible. The authors will make the following correction to Figure 5E in their manuscript (MicroRNA-155 promotes gastric cancer growth and invasion by negatively regulating transforming growth factor-u03b2 receptor 2. Cancer Science, 2018;109:618-628). The authors deeply regret for the mistake, but we did not do this on purpose. Neither of these changes affects the results or conclusions. The corrected figure 5E and raw data have been attached. We wish to apologize to all of the readers of this article and sincerely thanks for you again. Yajing Qu ![file] ,