miR-143 inhibits proliferation and invasion of hepatocellular carcinoma cells via down-regulation of TLR2 expression]

To detect the expression of microRNA-143 (miR-143) in hepatocellular carcinoma and investigate whether transfection of miR-143 could influence the biological behaviors of hepatocellular carcinoma cells.Hepatocellular carcinoma tissues and its corresponding adjacent normal tissues were obtained from patients undergoing radical surgical resection. Real-time quantitative PCR was utilized to detect the relative expression of miR-143 in hepatocellular carcinoma tissues and corresponding adjacent normal tissues. MiR-143 mimics and negative control oligonucleotides were synthesized and transfected into HepG-2 cells in vitro. Proliferation, apoptosis and invasion of the transfected cells were measured by MTT assay, flow cytometry (FCM) combined with annexin V-FITC/PI staining, and Transwell(TM) assay, respectively. The protein levels of Toll-like receptor 2 (TLR2), nuclear factor kappa B (NF-κB), matrix metalloproteinase 2 (MMP-2) and MMP-9 were detected by Western blotting.Expression of miR-143 was significantly lower in hepatocellular carcinoma tissues than in paired adjacent normal tissues. The level of miR-143 was significantly up-regulated after transfection of miR-143 mimics. And proliferation and invasion were significantly inhibited, but apoptosis was promoted after transfection. Expressions of TLR2, NF-κB, MMP-2 and MMP-9 were reduced by miR-143 mimics' transfection.The miR-143 expression was low in hepatic carcinoma and its over-expression could down-regulate the expressions of TLR2, NF-κB, MMP-2 and MMP-9.