Though androgen deprivation therapy is the standard treatment for prostate cancer (PCa), most patients would inevitably progress to castration-resistant prostate cancer (CRPC) which is the main cause of PCa death. Therefore, the identification of novel molecular mechanism regulating cancer progression and achievement of new insight into target therapy would be necessary for improving the benefits of PCa patients. This study aims to study the function and regulatory mechanism of HOTAIR/EZH2/miR-193a feedback loop in PCa progression. MSKCC and TCGA datasets were used to identify miR-193a expression profile in PCa. Cell Counting Kit-8 (CCK-8) assays, colony formation, invasion, migration, flow cytometry, a xenograft model and Gene Set Enrichment Analysis were used to detect and analyze the biological function of miR-193a. Then, we assessed the role of HOTAIR and EZH2 in regulation of miR-193a expression by using plasmid, lentivirus and small interfering RNA (siRNA). Luciferase reporter assays and chromatin immunoprecipitation assays were performed to detect the transcriptional activation of miR-193a by EZH2 and HOTAIR. Further, qRT-PCR and luciferase reporter assays were conducted to examine the regulatory role of miR-193a controlling the HOTAIR expression in PCa. Finally, the correlation between HOTAIR, EZH2 and miR-193a expression were analyzed using In situ hybridization and immunohistochemistry. We found that miR-193a was significantly downregulated in metastatic PCa through mining MSKCC and TCGA datasets. In vitro studies revealed that miR-193a inhibited PCa cell growth, suppressed migration and invasion, and promoted apoptosis; in vivo results demonstrated that overexpression of miR-193a mediated by lentivirus dramatically reduced PCa xenograft tumor growth. Importantly, we found EZH2 coupled with HOTAIR to repress miR-193a expression through trimethylation of H3K27 at miR-193a promoter in PC3 and DU145 cells. Interestingly, further evidence illustrated that miR-193a directly targets HOTAIR showing as significantly reduced HOTAIR level in miR-193a overexpressed cells and tissues. The expression level of miR-193a was inversely associated with that of HOTAIR and EZH2 in PCa. This study firstly demonstrated that miR-193a acted as tumor suppressor in CRPC and the autoregulatory feedback loop of HOTAIR/EZH2/miR-193a served an important mechanism in PCa development. Targeting this aberrantly activated feedback loop may provide a potential therapeutic strategy.

With the discovery of new chemotherapeutic drugs, chemotherapy becomes increasingly valuable. However, the resistance of tumor cells to chemotherapeutic agents significantly limits the effectiveness and causes chemotherapy failure. MicroRNAs have been shown to regulate drug resistance in many types of cancer. In the present study, we measured the chemosensitivity of five bladder cancer (BCa) cell lines to seven commonly used chemotherapeutic drugs by Vita‑Blue assay. We then identified the most sensitive (5637) and most tolerant cell lines (H‑bc) and conducted a multi‑group test. This test included expression group analyses of coding and non‑coding genes (miR‑omic and RNA‑seq). Based on our analyses, we selected miR‑22‑3p as a target. We then determined its own target gene [neuroepithelial cell transforming 1 (NET1)] by bioinformatic analysis and confirmed this finding by TaqMan‑quantitative reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (qRT‑PCR), western blot analysis and luciferase reporter assay. The effect of miR‑22‑3p on BCa multi‑chemoresistance was also determined by transfecting cells with the miR‑22‑3p‑mimic or miR‑22‑3p‑antagomiR. We assessed the involvement of NET1 in BCa chemoresistance by siRNA‑mediated NET1 inhibition or pINDUCER21‑enhanced green fluorescent protein‑NET1‑mediated overexpression. Plate colony formation and apoptosis assays were conducted to observe the effects of miR‑22‑3p and NET1 on BCa chemoresistance. In conclusion, our results suggest that miR‑22‑3p promotes BCa chemoresistance by targeting NET1 and may serve as a new prognostic biomarker for BCa patients.