MicroRNA-30b inhibits non-small cell lung cancer cells growth by targeting the epidermal growth factor receptor

Zecheng Qi, Bo Zhang, Jian Zhang, Quanteng Hu, Feng Xu,  Baofu Chen,  Chengchu Zhu

Abstract:

Lung cancer, especially non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), is the leading cause of cancer-related mortality in the world. Both microRNAs and epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) are important factors in NSCLC. In our study,the expression of miR-30b in 47 tumor tissues and paired normal tissues of NSCLC were detected by RT-PCR,andwe found that miR-30b was down-regulated in NSCLC tumor tissues and was associated with TNM stage, differentiation, and lymph node metastases. Then we investigated the ability of miR-30b to regulate EGFR in several NSCLC cell lines, and found that miR-30b inhibited proliferation, migration and invasion, induced apoptosis and enhanced the sensitivity of NSCLC cells to EGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitors (EGFR-TKIs) by targeting EGFR and repressing EGFR signaling pathways. Overall, these results indicated that miR-30b may be a potential therapeutic target in NSCLC patients.