Yeu Su
National Yang-Ming University, Taiwan
Title: MicroRNA-203 diminishes the stemness of human colon cancer cells mainly by suppressing GATA6 expression
Biography
Biography: Yeu Su
Abstract
The interaction between hyaluronan (HA) and CD44, an important cancer stem cell marker, is known to stimulate a variety of tumor cell-specific functions including their stemness. MicroRNA-203 (miR-203) can be down regulated by such an interaction in human colorectal cancer (CRC) cells which results in the increase of their stemness; however, its underlying mechanism has yet been defined. Here, we show that miR-203 overexpression and sequestration in HCT-116 and HT-29 human CRC cells reduces and enhances their stemness, respectively. We subsequently find that GATA6 is a direct target of miR-203 and upregulated expression of this transcription factor not only restores the self-renewal abilities of the miR-203-overexpressing HCT-116 and HT-29 cells but also promotes the stemness properties of their parental counterparts. More importantly, we show that silencing the expression of either LRH-1 or Hes-1 is sufficient to diminish the stemness-promoting effects of GATA6. Together, our findings delineate the mechanism underlying the stemness-inhibitory effects of miR-203 in human CRC cells and suggest this miR-203 as a potential therapeutic agent for colorectal cancer.