, Regulated by Multiple microRNAs, Facilitates Cancer Cell Aggressiveness in Pancreatic Ductal Adenocarcinoma.

Coronin proteins are actin-related proteins containing WD repeat domains encoded by seven genes (, , , , , , and ) in the human genome. Analysis of large cohort data from The Cancer Genome Atlas revealed that expression of , , , , and was significantly upregulated in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) tissues ( < 0.05). Moreover, high expression of and significantly predicted the 5 year survival rate of patients with PDAC ( = 0.0071 and = 0.0389, respectively). In this study, we focused on and investigated its functional significance and epigenetic regulation in PDAC cells. Knockdown assays using siRNAs targeting were performed in PDAC cells. Aggressive cancer cell phenotypes, especially cancer cell migration and invasion, were inhibited by knockdown. The involvement of microRNAs (miRNAs) is a molecular mechanism underlying the aberrant expression of cancer-related genes in cancer cells. Our analysis revealed that five miRNAs (, , , , and ) are putative candidate miRNAs regulating expression in PDAC cells. Importantly, all five miRNAs exhibited tumor-suppressive functions and four miRNAs except negatively regulated expression in PDAC cells. and its downstream signaling molecules are potential therapeutic targets in PDAC.