MiR-185 inhibits cell proliferation and invasion of non-small cell lung cancer by targeting KLF7.

MicroRNAs are short endogenous non-coding RNAs, which can frequently emerge as regulators in many cancer types. It wasdemonstrated in the research that miR-185 expression levels were remarkably down-regulated in NSCLC tissues than in adjacent normal tissues. Lower miR-185 expression levels were definitely associated with lymph node metastasis. Functional assays showed that up-regulated miR-185 expression in NSCLC cells could inhibit the cell propagation, cell colony formation and incursion capacities in vitro. Furthermore, it was researched that miR-185 could suppress the epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) process with the way of down-regulating E-cadherin expression and upregulating N-cadherin expression. Bioinformatics analysis and luciferase reporter gene assays revealed that Kruppel-like factor 7 (KLF7) acted as straightforward target of miR-185. Overexpression of miR-185 reduced the expression of KLF7 in NSCLC cells. Up-regulated KLF7 partly rescued the inhibiting effects induced by miR-185 on cell proliferation and invasion of NSCLC. Additionally, it was confirmed that miR-185 expression suppressed tumor growth using a tumor xenograft model in vivo . Thus, it was concluded that miR-185 may serve as a potential target of NSCLC treatment.