HNF-4α inhibits hepatocellular carcinoma cell proliferation through mir-122-adam17 pathway.

Abstract

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the most common human cancers, its prevalence and severity need us to discover novel early diagnostic biomarkers and new therapeutic strategies. MicroRNA-122 is the most abundant microRNA in the liver, and acts as a tumor suppressor and represses HCC development. In our study we showed that HNF-4α and MiR-122 were down-regulated significantly in hepatocellular carcinoma. Over-expression of HNF-4α inhibit hepatocellular carcinoma cells proliferation. And miR-122 is one of the downstream effector of HNF-4α. Up-regulated miR-122 inhibited hepatocellular carcinoma cells proliferation through regulating ADAM17. Collectively, our results suggested that HNF-4α could inhibit hepatocellular carcinoma proliferation with miR-122 being a downstream target of it. And miR-122 would inhibit hepatocellular carcinoma proliferation by regulating ADAM17 signal pathway.