Background
microRNAs (miRNAs), a family of small (~22-nucleotide) endogenous noncoding RNAs [
1], play important roles in many cellular processes by targeting an estimated 10–30 % of all protein-coding genes [
2,
3]. miRNAs regulate target genes through pairing interactions with specific mRNAs, which can lead to degradation of target mRNAs or translation repression. Recently, growing evidence has shown that a number of miRNAs are involved in the pathogenesis of human cancers.
miR-122 is the most abundant miRNA (constituting 70 % of the total miRNA population) in the liver [
4‐
6]. It acts as an important tumor suppressor in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) by targeting the genes involved in cell proliferation, differentiation, apoptosis and angiogenesis [
7‐
10]. Previous reports have also shown that its expression is specifically reduced in primary HCC [
11‐
13], so the upregulation of miR-122 should be beneficial in the prevention and treatment of HCC.
The farnesoid X receptor (FXR), a member of the nuclear receptor superfamily, is a transcription factor with multiple functions that is mainly expressed in the liver, intestine, kidneys and adrenal glands [
14]. Ligand-activated FXR binds to the response elements of target genes either as a classical FXR/retinoid X receptor alpha (RXRα) heterodimer or as a monomer [
15‐
17], leading to changes in their expression. FXR plays an important role in regulating bile acid synthesis, and lipid and glucose metabolism [
18]. Recently, it has also been shown to provide protection against liver carcinogenesis through regulating tumor-related genes such as gankyrin, nuclear factor (NF)-κB, N-myc downstream regulated gene 2 (NDRG2), p53, and carbohydrate response element binding protein [
19‐
23]. However, it is unclear whether the anti-HCC effect of FXR is involved in the regulation of miR-122.
In the present study, we demonstrated that the level of FXR was positively correlated with that of miR-122 in HCC tissues and cell lines. FXR upregulated the expression of miR-122 by directly binding to the directed repeat separated by two nucleotides (DR2 element) (−338 to −325) in miR-122 promoter region, indicating that miR-122 is a novel target gene of FXR. Functional experiments showed that FXR-mediated upregulation of miR-122 suppressed the proliferation of HCC cells in vitro and the growth of HCC xenografts in vivo. These results suggest that FXR may serve as a key transcriptional regulator for manipulating miR-122 expression, and that the FXR/miR-122 pathway may be a novel target for the treatment of HCC.
Discussion
miR-122 is highly enriched in the liver, and plays an important role in regulating hepatocyte development, differentiation, lipid metabolism, and stress responses [
24‐
27]. Aberrant expression of miR-122 is closely related with liver diseases. For examples, miR-122 represses hepatitis B virus (HBV) replication, and is decreased in the livers of HBV-positive patients [
28,
29]. Moreover, miR-122 is an important tumor suppressor of HCC [
11,
13], and its downregulation in human HCC tissues [
8,
12] is associated with metastasis and poor prognosis [
30,
31]. Because of many important roles of miR-122, it is necessary to understand its regulatory mechanisms. Previous studies have shown that the transcriptional factors hepatocyte nuclear factor 4 alpha (HNF4α) and CCAAT/enhancer binding protein alpha (C/EBPα) can modulate miR-122 expression [
30,
32].
The nuclear receptor FXR, a multiple functional transcription factor, has been received increasing attention as a therapeutic target for the treatment of liver carcinoma and other disorders such as metabolic diseases and fibrosis. In this study, we show for the first time that FXR upregulates miR-122 expression by binding directly to the DR2 element in miR-122 promoter region, and, moreover, that this upregulation plays an important role in the FXR-mediated growth suppression of HCC cells in vitro and in vivo.
Recently, Song et al. demonstrated that the nuclear receptor peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma (PPARγ) epigenetically regulates miR-122 expression in HCC cells [
33]. They found that treatment with the DNA methylation inhibitor 5′-aza-2′deoxycytidine and histone deacetylation inhibitor 4-phenylbutyric acid increased the association of PPARγ/RXRα, but decreased that of its corepressors (N-CoR and SMRT), with miR-122 regulatory elements, leading to an upregulation of miR-122 transcription. FXR and PPARγ share a number of characteristics, including acting as a heterodimer with RXRα, although FXR can also bind to the response elements as a monomer, and recruits different cofactors from those of PPARγ to regulate target genes. Therefore, it is not clear whether FXR can epigenetically regulate miR-122 expression in the same way as PPARγ, which requires further study.
Besides its regulation on miR-122, FXR uses other mechanisms to protect against HCC including the repression of NF-κB activation in hepatocytes [
20], indicating that its anti-inflammatory properties may contribute to HCC prevention. Moreover, FXR also inhibits the expression of gankyrin, a small proteasome subunit that mediates the downregulation of tumor suppressor proteins such as Rb, p53, HNF4α and C/EBPα in the development of HCC [
34]. Additionally, FXR directly promotes the expression of HCC suppressors such as small heterodimer partner and NDRG2, leading to the repression of HCC development, growth and metastasis [
35‐
37,
21]. These reports highlight the complexity of FXR anti-HCC mechanisms, which should be investigated further.
Many target genes of miR-122 are involved in hepatocarcinogenesis, HCC growth and metastasis, including IGF-1R, cyclin G1, Wnt1, serum response factor, a disintegrin and metalloprotease 10 (ADAM10), ADAM17, cut-like homeobox 1, pyruvate kinase muscle isozyme 2, and pituitary tumor-transforming gene 1 binding factor [
24,
38,
39]. Of these, cyclin G1 and IGF-1R are involved in cell proliferation. Cyclin G1 negatively regulates p53 protein by recruiting B subunit of phosphatase 2A to dephosphorylate Mdm-2 [
40]. Overexpression of cyclin G1 enhances the growth of cancer cells, while its silencing suppresses cell proliferation [
41]. It can be directly downregulated by miR-122, and the expression of cyclin G1 and miR-122 is inversely correlated in HCC tissues [
42]. IGF-1R has recently been proposed as a novel target for cancer treatment because it is overexpressed in a range of cancers [
43,
44]. miR-122 suppresses IGF-1R expression and attenuates IGF-1R/Akt signaling, which sustains the activity of glycogen synthase kinase 3 beta and in turn represses cancer cell proliferation [
30].
Materials and methods
Reagents
The FXR agonist GW4064 was purchased from Sigma Chemical Company (St Louis, MO). Antagomir-122 (5′-CAAACACCAUUGUCACACUCCA-3′), antagomir negative control (5′-CAGUACUUUUGUGUAGUACAA-3′), siRNA for FXR (5′-CCUCAGGAAAUAACAAAUATT-3′), and siRNA negative control (5′-UUCUCCGAACGUGUCACGUTT-3′) were synthesized by GenePharma (Shanghai, China). The all-in-one miRNA quantitative reverse transcriptase PCR detection kit was purchased from GeneCopoeia (Guangzhou, China). The dual luciferase assay system was from Promega (Madison, WI). The ChIP kit was from Millipore (Billerica, MA). Antibodies against FXR (sc-1204), IGF-1R (sc-712), cyclin G1 (sc-7865) and β-actin (sc-47778) were purchased from Santa Cruz Biotechnology (Dallas, TX).
Patient tissues and cell lines
A total of 20 HCC tissues and the corresponding adjacent noncancerous tissues were obtained from Department of Hepatobiliary Surgery, Xinqiao Hospital, Third Military Medical University (Chongqing, China). Fresh tissue samples were collected and snap frozen in liquid nitrogen. The study was approved by the ethics committee of Third Military Medical University (Chongqing, China).
Human HCC cell lines HepG2 and Hep3B were from American Type Culture Collection (Manassas, VA). The other HCC cell lines including Huh7, PLC, SMMC-7721, MHCC97L and MHCC97H, and hepatic cell line L02 were purchased from China Center for Type Culture Collection (Wuhan, China). All cells were cultured in Dulbecco’s Modified Eagle’s medium supplemented with 10 % fetal bovine serum, streptomycin (100 mg/mL) and penicillin (100 U/mL) at 37 °C in a 5 % CO2 humid incubator.
Quantitative real-time PCR (qRT-PCR)
The expression of mature miR-122 was assayed using an all-in-one miRNA quantitative reverse transcriptase PCR detection kit according to the manufacturer’s protocol, normalizing to U6 small nuclear RNA (snRNA). For examination of the mRNAs (including FXR, IGF-1R and cyclin G1 mRNAs) and pri-miR-122, total RNA was extracted with TRIzol reagent (Invitrogen, Carlsbad, CA), and then the first-strand cDNA was synthesized using M-MLV reverse transcriptase (Invitrogen). Real-time PCR was performed with SYBR green qPCR master mix (Promega). Relative levels of the mRNAs and pri-miR-122 were normalized to that of β-actin mRNA. The primer sets for qRT-PCR are listed in Additional file
1: Table S1.
Western blotting
Whole proteins were extracted from cells or tissues, and protein concentrations were determined using the Bradford protein assay kit (Beyotime, Shanghai, China). The proteins (50 μg/lane) were separated by 10 % sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (PAGE) and transferred to polyvinylidene difluoride membranes (Millipore). Subsequently, the membranes were blocked with 5 % fat-free dry milk in Tris-buffered saline containing 0.1 % Tween-20, and then incubated separately with primary antibodies against FXR, IGF-1R, cyclin G1 or β-actin at 4 °C overnight. After incubation with horseradish peroxidase-conjugated secondary antibodies for 1 h, enhanced chemiluminescence detection reagents (Pierce, Rockford, IL) were used to visualize the signals.
Plasmid construction and luciferase reporter assay
Putative FXREs in human
miR-122 promoter region were predicted using an online algorithm (NUBIScan:
http://www.nubiscan.unibas.ch/). Based on this prediction (Fig.
3a), different lengths of human
miR-122 promoter region were amplified by PCR using Huh7 cell genomic DNA as a template (The primer sequences are listed in Additional file
1: Table S2). The fragments were then separately inserted between
KpnI and
HindIII sites of the pGL3-basic vector (Promega), and the resulting plasmids were named as follows with the fragment of
miR-122 promoter region specified: pGL3-F1 (−1100 to +130), pGL3-F2 (−1000 to +130), pGL3-F3 (−900 to +130), pGL3-F4 (−400 to +130) (also named pGL3-F4(DR2)-WT), pGL3-F5 (−200 to +130), pGL3-F6 (−150 to +130), pGL3-F7 (−50 to +130) and pGL3-F8 (+5 to +130). pGL3-F4(DR2)-Mut, derived from pGL3-F4(DR2)-WT, contained mutations in the DR2 element (A
ATCGACCAG
ACTA, the mutated bases are underlined).
For luciferase reporter assays, the above plasmids were separately co-transfected with the renilla luciferase expression vector pRL-TK (Promega) into Huh7 cells using Lipofectamine 2000 (Invitrogen) according to the manufacturer’s protocol. After 6 h incubation, the cells were treated with vehicle dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) or GW4064 (5 μM) for 24 h. The cells were then harvested for the detection of luciferase activity using the dual-luciferase assay kit (Promega) according to the manufacturer’s instructions. Firefly luciferase activity was normalized to that of renilla luciferase activity. All transfection experiments were performed in triplicate and repeated at least three times.
EMSA assay
Nuclear extracts were prepared from GW4064-treated Huh7 cells using the NE-PER nuclear and cytoplasmic extraction kit (Pierce), and the protein concentrations were determined using Bradford protein assay kit (Beyotime). The double-stranded probes were end-labeled with [γ-32P]-ATP using T4 polynucleotide kinase (Takara, Shiga, Japan). The binding reactions were performed separately in a 15 μl reaction mixture containing 5× gel shift binding buffer (5 mM MgCl2, 2.5 mM EDTA, 2.5 mM DTT, 250 mM NaCl, 50 mM Tris–HCl (pH7.5), 25 mg/ml poly(dI-dC) and 20 % glycerol (v/v)), and 5 μg nuclear proteins. For competition experiments, unlabeled (cold) DR2 or Mut DR2 probe was added to the reaction mixture at 100× excess concentrations over the labeled probe. The mixtures were then incubated at room temperature for 10 min. For supershift assays, 4 μg antibody against FXR or control IgG was added to the reaction mixture and incubated on ice for 30 min. Subsequently, 6000 cpm of 32P-labeled probe was added to each reaction mixture and incubated at room temperature for 20 min. All the reaction products were analyzed by electrophoresis in a 4 % nondenaturing polyacrylamide gel (59 : 1, acrylamide : bisacrylamide) in 0.5× Tris-borate-EDTA. The gel was then dried and exposed to x-ray film overnight at −70 °C for autoradiography.
ChIP assay
ChIP assays were performed using the ChIP Assay kit according to the manufacturer’s instructions. Briefly, Huh7 cells were treated with 5 μM GW4064 for 48 h, and then incubated with formaldehyde at a final concentration of 1 % (v/v) for 10 min at 37 °C to cross-link the nuclear proteins to DNA. Subsequently, the cells were harvested by centrifugation at 4 °C for 4 min at 1000 × g, and then lysed in 200 μl SDS lysis buffer (1 % SDS, 10 mM EDTA and 50 mM Tris–HCl (pH 8.1)). Chromation sonication was performed to shear the DNA to an average length of 200–1000 bp, followed by the immunoprecipitation with the antibody against FXR, taking IgG as a control. The precipitated DNA was extracted and subjected to PCR amplification using the primer pair spanning the FXRE/DR2 in miR-122 promoter region (−390 to −261) (forward primer: 5′-AACTTAGTAGGCTCCTGTGACCGG − 3′, and reverse primer: 5′ − ATCTTCCCCTCAGAAC CCCAACT − 3′).
Cell proliferation assay
The cell proliferation was examined using the CCK-8 assay kit (Beyotime) according to the manufacturer’s instructions. Briefly, Huh7 or Hep3B cells were seeded onto 96-well plates (2 × 103 cells/well) and transfected with antagomir-122 or the control antagomir (NC) for 24 h. The cells were then treated with vehicle DMSO or 5 μM GW4064 for 48 h, followed by the addition of 10 μL WST-8 dye to each well. After incubation at 37 °C for 4 h, the absorbance value at 450 nm was determined using a microplate reader.
In vivo experiments
Eight-week-old male nude mice were purchased from the Laboratory Animal Center of China (Shanghai, China) and cared for under the guidelines of the Animal Care Committee of Third Military Medical University (Chongqing, China). A total of 5 × 106 Hep3B cells in 150 μl phosphate-buffered saline were subcutaneously injected into the right axilla of each nude mouse. After 11 days, the mice were randomly assigned to control and test groups (n = 5 per group). They then received a daily intraperitoneal injection of 40 mg/kg GW4064 (test group) or vehicle (control group) for 8 d. The length and width of the xenograft tumors were monitored every other day, and their volumes were estimated using the following formula: volume = width2 × length × 1/2. Subsequently, the mice were sacrificed, and the tumors were harvested for analysis of the expression of Ki67, miR-122 and its target genes including IGF-1R and cyclin G1.
Immunohistochemical staining
The harvested xenograft tumors were fixed with 4 % polyoxymethylene, and then paraffin-embedded and sectioned. The sections were incubated with the primary antibody against Ki67 (ZSGB-BIO, Beijing, China), followed by a peroxidase-conjugated secondary antibody. 3,3′-diaminobenzidine was used to visualize the Ki67 signal, and the sections were observed under Olympus IX81 photomicroscope.
Statistical analysis
All data were expressed as means ± SD unless otherwise stated. Statistical analysis was performed using SPSS13.0 software. Differences between two groups were determined by the Student’s t-test, and correlation analysis was performed using Pearson’s test. P < 0.05 was defined as statistically significant.
Competing interests
The authors declare that they have no competing interests.
Authors’ contributions
JH, KZ and YZ performed most of the experiments, analyzed the data, and helped draft the manuscript. LZ participated in the collection of HCC tissues and the corresponding adjacent noncancerous tissues. MG, YJ-Z and WG took part in qRT-PCR and Western blot analysis. ZX, SC, XS and GH performed luciferase reporter assays, EMSA and ChIP assays. YZ and FH conceived the study, participated in its design and coordination, supervised the experiments, and drafted the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.