MicroRNA-367 promotes progression of hepatocellular carcinoma through /PI3K/AKT signaling pathway.

The study aimed to investigate the functional roles of micorRNA (miR)-367 in progression of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), as well as its regulation on PI3K/AKT pathway. The relative expression of  in HCC tissues and cell line was detected using quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) method. Chi-square test was applied to analyze the relationship between expression and clinical characterizes of HCC patients. The influences of  expression on cell proliferation, migration and invasion were analyzed using MTT and transwell assays respectively. Western blot assay was performed to for protein analysis. HCC tissues and cell lines exhibited significant up-regulation of Moreover, the elevated expression of  was positively correlated with tumor size ( =0.005), metastasis ( =0.004) and TNM stage ( 0.001). Knockdown of  expression could inhibit cell proliferation, migration and invasion in vitro. While, enhanced  expression exhibited opposite effects. Besides, inhibition of  might enhance  expression, reduce the levels of p-GSK3β and p-AKT.  might be a target of  in HCC. The inhibition of  could reverse the anti-tumor action caused by the knockdown of    serves as an oncogene in HCC through activating the PI3K/AKT pathway by targeting .