miR-3613-5p enhances the metastasis of pancreatic cancer by targeting CDK6

Pancreatic cancer (PC) is a leading cause of cancer mortality and is expected to continue increasing incidence. Abnormally expressed microRNAs have been demonstrated tightly correlated with the development and progression of PC. However, the molecular mechanisms remain largely unknown. In this study through combing both the TCGA database and our two verification PC cohorts, we found the consistent reduction of miR-3613-5p in PC tumors, which significantly correlated with reduced cumulative survival rate among PC patients. PC patients with higher lymph node metastasis rate show reduced miR-3613-5p expression. Through further mechanistic investigation, we demonstrate that miR-3613-5p down-regulated CDK6 in repressing the metastasis capacity of PC cellsin vitroandin vivo. Elevated CDK6 were also found in PC samples, which also correlate with poor prognosis. Thus, our study found a novel tumor repressor miR-3613-5p in PC progression.