miR-148a-3p suppresses epithelial ovarian cancer progression primarily by targeting c-Met.

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are a group of small non-coding RNAs that modulate post-transcriptional gene expression. It has been demonstrated that various miRNAs may be expressed at different levels in different types of tumors. The present study assessed the role of microRNA-148a-3p (miR-148a-3p) in epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC). The results demonstrated that miR-148a-3p was decreased in EOC tissues and that a lower miRa-148-3p concentration was associated with a higher overall survival rate. Transfection of miR-148a-3p suppressed the invasive and proliferative capacity of SKOV3 cells. The induced overexpression of miR-148a-3p significantly inhibited the relative luciferase activity of the pmirGLO-c-Met-3'untranslated region compared with an empty vector. In addition, c-Met silencing led to a decrease in the invasive and proliferative capacity of EOC cells. The inhibition of miR-148a-3p did not increase the invasiveness of SKOV3 cells, even when c-Met was silenced. To the best of our knowledge, the present study is the first to demonstrate that miR-148a-3p expression is decreased in EOC cancer tissues and cell lines. The present study therefore demonstrated that miR-148a-3p may serve as a tumor suppressor in EOC by targeting c-Met.