IL-6 upregulation contributes to the reduction of miR-26a expression in hepatocellular carcinoma cells

Brazilian Journal of Medical and Biological Research

Yafei Zhang¹  Bicheng Zhang¹  Anran Zhang¹  Xiaohua Li¹  Jian Liu¹  Jie Zhao¹  Yong Zhao¹  Jianfei Gao¹  Dianchun Fang¹  Zhiguo Rao¹ 

关键词: MiR-26a;    IL-6;    c-Myc;    Hepatocellular carcinoma;    Carcinoma prognosis;   

DOI  :  10.1590/S0100-879X2012007500155

来源: SciELO

【 摘 要 】

A recent study showed that miR-26a is downregulated in hepatocellular carcinoma tissues and that this downregulation is an independent predictor of survival. Interestingly, the same study also reported that miR-26a downregulation causes a concomitant elevation of IL-6 expression. Because miR-26a expression was found to be transcriptionally downregulated by oncogene c-Myc in various cancers, and the expression of c-Myc was increased by IL-6 stimulation, we hypothesized that IL-6 contributes to reduction of miR-26a in hepatocellular carcinoma. Serum IL-6 was measured by ELISA and miR-26a was detected by qRT-PCR. The data of 30 patients with hepatocellular carcinoma who had undergone surgical tumor resection revealed that serum IL-6 could be considered to be a predictor of survival up to 5 years for hepatocellular carcinoma patients (log-rank test, P < 0.05). We observed that the serum IL-6 concentration was inversely correlated with miR-26a expression in cancerous tissues (Pearson correlation test, r = -0.651, P < 0.01). Furthermore, by in vitro experiments with HepG2 cells, we showed that IL-6 stimulation can lead to miR-26a suppression via c-Myc activation, whereas in normal hepatocyte LO2 cells incubation with IL-6 had no significant effect on miR-26a expression. Taken together, these results indicate that miR-26a reduction in hepatocellular carcinoma might be due to IL-6 upregulation.

【 授权许可】

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