Autotaxin is a novel target of microRNA-101-3p.

Autotaxin (ATX), a vital enzyme that generates lysophosphatidic acid (LPA), affects many biological processes, including tumorigenesis, via the ATX-LPA axis. In this study, we demonstrate that microRNA-101-3p (miR-101-3p), a well-known tumor suppressor, downregulates ATX expression at the posttranscriptional level. We found that miR-101-3p inhibits ATX regulation by directly targeting a conserved sequence in the ATX mRNA 3'UTR. Moreover, we observed an inverse correlation between ATX and miR-101-3p levels in various types of cancer cells. ATX is highly expressed in several human cancers. Here, we verified that ATX expression is significantly inhibited by miR-101-3p in U87 and HCT116 cells. ATX downregulation contributed to the suppression of migration, invasion, and proliferation mediated by miR-101-3p; furthermore, the tumor-suppressing activity of miR-101-3p was partially reduced by the addition of LPA in U87 cells. Our data suggest that ATX is a novel target of miR-101-3p.