MicroRNA-144-3p suppresses tumor growth and angiogenesis by targeting SGK3 in hepatocellular carcinoma

In our previous studies, the Illumine Soledad massively parallel signature sequencing of miRNomes in non-tumor and hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) tissues revealed that microRNA (miR)-144-3p was significantly downregulated in HCC, but its role in HCC development, especially angiogenesis, remains unclear. In this investigation, we found recovering miR-144-3p expression can significantly suppress the growth, migration and induced angiogenic capacity of HCC cells through both in vivo and in vitro experiments. Moreover, clinical correlation analysis showed that low expression of miR-144-3p was positively correlated to poor disease-free survival (DFS) of HCC patients. Mechanistically, serum and glucocorticoid kinase 3 (SGK3), the putative targets of miR-144-3p, was predicted by Target Scan database and identified to be suppressed by miR-144-3p so that inhibiting the activation of mTOR-VEGF downstream signals was activated by the phosphoinositide 3-kinase (PI3K)-independent pathway. Hence, we concluded that miR-144-3p, which is frequently downregulated in HCC, can inhibit proliferation, migration and repress angiogenesis by regulating SGK3 activation with PI3K independent signal pathway, and acts as a prognostic factor for HCC patients.