Dual-strand tumor-suppressor microRNA-145 (miR-145-5p and miR-145-3p) coordinately targeted MTDH in lung squamous cell carcinoma

Patients with lung adenocarcinoma may benefit from recently developed molecular targeted therapies. However, analogous advanced treatments are not available for patients with lung squamous cell carcinoma (lung SCC). The survival rate of patients with the advanced stage of lung SCC remains poor. Exploration of novel lung SCC oncogenic pathways might lead to new treatment protocols for the disease. Based on this concept, we have identified microRNA- (miRNA) mediated oncogenic pathways in lung SCC. It is well known that miR-145-5p (the guide strand) functions as a tumor suppressor in several types of cancer. However, the impact of miR-145-3p (the passenger strand) on cancer cells is still ambiguous. Expression levels of miR-145-5p and miR-145-3p were markedly reduced in cancer tissues, and ectopic expression of these miRNAs inhibited cancer cell aggressiveness, suggesting that both miR-145-3p as well as miR-145-5p acted as antitumor miRNAs. We identified seven putative target genes (MTDH, EPN3, TPD52, CYP27B1, LMAN1, STAT1 and TXNDC12) that were coordinately regulated by miR-145-5p and miR-145-3p in lung SCC. Among the seven genes, we found that metadherin (MTDH) was a direct target of these miRNAs. Kaplan-Meier survival curves showed that high expression of MTDH predicted reduced survival of lung SCC patients. We investigated pathways downstream from MTDH by using genome-wide gene expression analysis. Our data showed that several anti-apoptosis and pro-proliferation genes were involved in pathways downstream from MTDH in lung SCC. Taken together, both strands of miR-145, miR-145-5p and miR-145-3p are functional and play pivotal roles as antitumor miRNAs in lung SCC.