Gene set enrichment analysis suggested that pathways enriched in miR-622 high group related to cell cycle, including “cell cycle process”, “mitotic cell cycle” and “cell cycle phase” (Fig.
2A-C), which enlightened us to investigate the mechanism underlying miR-622 unfavorable overexpression. Among seven CRC cell lines, SW620 was ranked the highest and RKO was the lowest in miR-622 expression (Fig.
2D). SW620 cell proportion was increased in G1 phase and decreased in S-G2 phases when treated with miR-622 inhibitor (Fig.
2E), with downregulated expression of cell cycle sub-phase markers, such as CCND1, CCNE1, CDK1 and CDK6 (Supplementary Fig.
1A). miR-622 mimics significantly increased RKO cell proportion in S-G2 phases (Fig.
2F), with increased expression of CCNA2, CCNB1, CCNB2, CDK4, CDK6, PCNA and SPK2 (Supplementary Fig.
1B-C). miR-622 inhibitor attenuated SW620 cell growth in CCK-8 assay (Fig.
2G), and reduced colony formation (Fig.
2H). On the contrary, miR-622 mimics significantly increased RKO cell growth (Fig.
2I), increased colony formation (Fig.
2J), while miR-622 mimics significantly increased.
SW620 transfected with lentivirus-miR-622-inhibitor or –negative control (N.C) was injected subcutaneously. miR-622 inhibited group formed smaller tumors, showed a slower growth curve and smaller tumor weight (Fig.
3A-C). As indicator of cell proliferation, Ki-67 staining showed less proliferating tumor cells in miR-622 inhibited group (Fig.
3D). Subcutaneous tumor model of RKO cells transfected with miR-622 overexpression (OE) and –N.C lentivirus was also established. Overexpressed group formed larger tumors, showed a faster growth curve and bigger tumor weight (Fig.
3E-G). Ki-67 positive cells were detected more in miR-622 overexpressed group (Fig.
3H). Analysis of dataset GSE29623, an mRNA and microRNA profile in colon cancer, supported that miR-622 positively correlated with signature genes in cell cycle pathway (Fig.
3I-N), such as CDC6 (r = 0.421), CDK2 (r = 0.336), CCNE1 (r = 0.423), CCNA2 (r = 0.412), CCNA5 (r = 0.350), and MCM10 (r = 0.423). These results indicated pro-tumor proliferation of miR-622 through regulating cell cycle process both in vitro and in vivo.