5D). In addition, such cells also showed selleckchem higher migration activity (Fig. 5E, lane 4 versus lanes 1 and 2), similar to that caused by infection with lenti-si-TSLC1 (Fig. 5E, lane 3 versus lanes 1 and 2). The stimulating effect

by lenti-miR-216a can be reversed by the overexpressed TSLC1, which did not include the 3′ UTR responsive to the repression of miR-216a (Fig. 5F, lane 4 versus lane 3). The results demonstrated that elevated miR-216a in hepatocytes might contribute to the increase in cell proliferation and migration activities, possibly through the decrease of TSLC1 protein expression. We then investigated these molecules in the primary liver tissues. The protein levels of AR and TSLC1 and the miR-216a in 20 paired HBV-related male

HCC liver tissues were examined and compared with those of the nontumorous liver tissues from FNH male patients (Fig. 6A). Figure 6B,C summarizes the quantification results for the AR protein and TSLC1 protein, respectively. The results indicate that the AR protein is not only significantly elevated in the liver tissues adjacent to HCC (≈2-fold), but this is even more evident in HCCs (≈5-fold) (Fig. 6B). In contrast, the TSLC1 protein is down-regulated in most HCCs, also starting from the precancerous liver adjacent to the HCC (Fig. 6C). It is noteworthy that the mRNA levels did not decrease concordantly with the decrease of TSLC1 protein, suggesting that the regulation mainly occurs at the posttranscriptional level (Fig. CHIR-99021 in vitro 6D). The paired correlation among AR, TSLC1, and miR-216a levels in these samples medchemexpress was examined. A positive correlation between the AR protein level and miR-216a and an inverse correlation between TSLC1 and miR-216a was identified in these liver tissues, supporting the possibility that AR, through increased miR-216a levels, could decrease TSLC1 protein expression in these clinical specimens (Fig. 6E,F). It is well documented that HCC develops through a multistep carcinogenic process, affecting several tumorigenic-related genes by genetic or epigenetic changes.2, 7, 8 In addition

to affecting the protein coding genes, the microRNAs were also considered as candidates to be deregulated in the early carcinogenic process. By analyzing seven miRNAs, Gao et al.14 identified three miRNAs with aberrant expression patterns in the precancerous liver tissues, including miR-224, miR-145, and miR-199b. The three miRNAs reported by Gao et al. were also confirmed in our screening, including miR-224 (with a 6.36-fold elevation), miR-199b (with a 0.48-fold decrease), and miR-145 (with a 0.72-fold decrease), supporting the reliability of our screening analysis. Our results pointed out two miRNAs, miR-216a and miR-224, with a significant fold change of more than six, mainly occurring at the stage from the normal to the precancerous stage compared with that at the stage of malignant transformation (Table 1, the fold change for HCC versus pre-T, 1.31 and 1.97, respectively).