Up-regulated miR-452-5p suppressed the expression of RORα and promoted the proliferation and migration of HCC cells

To study the prognosis-related regulation mechanism of miR-452-5p and its influence on the proliferation and migration of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) cells, liver hepatocellular carcinoma (LIHC) dataset in The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) was used to validate the differential expression of miR-452-5p and perform the Kaplan-Meier analysis of overall survival (OS).Target genes of miR-452-5p from TargetscanHuman and miRDB databases were predictived; and differentially expressed genes(DEGs) and weighted gene co-expression network analysis (WCGNA) were completed with GSE14520.Lipofectmine-2000 was used to transfect miR-452-5p mimics, mimics negative control, miR-452-5p inhibitor and inhibitor negative control into Huh7 cells,respectively.The mRNA and protein expression level of RORα in 4 groups were determined by RT-qPCR and Western blot.CCK-8 assay and Transwell assay were conducted to testify the capabilities of proliferation and migration.The regulation between miR-452-5p and RORα was confirmed by the dual luciferase reporter assay.After analysis in the TCGA-LIHC dataset, miR-452-5p had higher expression in HCC tissue than that in normal tissue, which was also associated with a shorter OS.RORα and LAMC1 were discriminated by intersecting of DEGs, WGCNA module genes, and predictive target genes.Survival analysis exhibited that dysregulation of RORα was significantly related to the OS.Overexpression of miR-452-5p in HCC cells suppressed the expression of RORα both in mRNA and protein, and also enhanced the viability and migration of HCC cells.The results of the dual luciferase reporter assay showed that miR-452-5p targeted 3′UTR of RORα.Up-regulated miR-452-5p inhibited the expression of RORα, facilitated the proliferation and migration of HCC cells, and promoted the progression and poor prognosis of HCC.