Deregulated expression of miR-107 inhibits metastasis of PDAC through inhibition PI3K/Akt signaling via caveolin-1 and PTEN.

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) displays a highly aggressive malignancy and is considered to be an incurable and rapidly lethal disease. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small non-coding RNAs of approximately nucleotides that regulate several aspects of tumors pathogenesis, including migration, invasion, metastasis and epithelial-mesenchymal transition. We have found that miR-107 was significantly high expression in PDAC tissues and cells. High miR-107 expression is associated with poor clinicopathological parameters and prognosis in PDAC patients. Deregulated expression of miR-107 in PDAC cells (AsPC-1 and Panc-1) is sufficient to reduce cell migration and invasion, and to induce upregulation of epithelial markers (β-catenin, ZO-1 and E-cadherin) and a decrease of mesenchymal marker expression (ZEB-1 and vimentin). We also found that the caveolin-1, PTEN and p-Akt expression are modulated by miR-107 in PDAC cells. Moreover, our study clearly demonstrated that deregulated expression of miR-107 inhibited cell migration and invasion and EMT by up-regulation of caveolin-1 and PTEN, and inhibition of PI3K/Akt signaling in PDAC cells. Our study suggested that miR‑107 expression might both be a useful indicator of the metastatic potential and provided a new potential therapeutic target in PDAC.