ABSTRACT
Chemotherapy is the preferred therapeutic approach for advanced ovarian cancer,but a suceessful long-term treatment is prevented by the development of drug resistance.Recent works have underlined the involvement of non-coding RNAs,microRNAs (miRNAs) in cancer development,with several conjectures regarding their possible involvement in the evolution of drug resistance.This study is to investigate the promoting effects and mechanism of miR-125b involved in the development of chemoresistance in ovarian cancer.The different expression of miR-125b in cisplatin-sensitive ovarian cancer cell line (OV2008) and its resistant variant (C13*) was identified by real-time PCR.An in vitro cytotoxicity assay and apoptosis assay using CCK-8 assay and flow cytometry,were carried out to detect the effect of miR-125b and Bak1 on cisplatin resistance of cells.Real-time PCR,Western blotting and luciferase reporter assay were used to detect whether Bak1 is a target of miR-125b.As compared with OV2008 cells,the expression levels of miR-125b in C13* cells were increased.It was found that the up-regulation of microRNA-125b caused a marked inhibition of cisplatin-induced cytotoxicity and apoptosis and a subsequent increase in the resistance to cisplatin in OV2008 and C13* cells.Moreover,Bakl was a direct target of miR-125b,and down-regulation of Bak1 suppressed cisplatin-induced apoptosis and led to an increased resistance to cisplatin.Our study indicates that miR-125b has a significantly promoting effect on chemoresistance of C13* cells and up-regulation of miR-125b expression contributes to cisplatin resistance through suppression of Bakl expression.This finding has important implications in the development of targeted therapeutics for overcoming cisplatin resistance in ovarian cancer.