ABSTRACT
Objective To analyze the regulatory of miRNA (miR)-149-5p for the expression of Aurora-B in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC). Methods The pathologic histology paraffin blocks of 61 patients with ESCC in Shanxi Provincial People's Hospital from January 2010 to December 2017 were collected. The immunohistochemical staining and tissue section in situ hybridization method were used to observe the expressions of Aurora-B and miR-149-5p in the tumor tissues and adjacent mucosas of the patients, and their relationship with clinicopathological parameters was analyzed. miRNA was predicted by using software TargetScan and miR walk. The relationship between Aurora-B and miR-149-5p were verified by using Western blot in ESCC TE-1 cells. Results The result of immunohistochemical staining showed that in 61 patients, 37 (61％) tumor tissues showed higher expression of Aurora-B compared with adjacent mucosas, the Aurora-B expression in 15 (26％) tumor tissues were in line with benign tissues, the Aurora-B expression in 9 (13％) tumor tissues were inferior to benign tissues. The expression of Aurora-B were not correlated with age (χ2=0.008, P=0.929), gender (χ2=0.088, P=0.767), grade of differentiation (χ2=2.632, P=0.268), but correlated with TNM staging (χ2=15.153, P<0.01) and lymph node metastasis (χ2=5.979, P=0.014). The miR-149-5p was predicted to combine with Aurora-B 3'untraslated region (UTR) by using TargetScan and miRwalk software. The result of in situ hybridization showed that the miR-149-5p showed low expression in 22 (36％) tumor tissues. The expression of miR-149-5p was correlated with Aurora-B expression (χ2 = 5.622,P= 0.018), and not correlated with age (χ2= 2.617, P= 0.106), gender (χ2= 1.529, P= 0.216), grade of differentiation (χ2 = 2.854, P= 0.240), TNM staging (χ2 = 0.870, P= 0.351) and lymph node metastasis (χ2= 0.128, P= 0.351). The Western blot results of TE-1 cells showed that the expression of Aurora-B in simultaneous over-expression of miR-149-5p and Aurora-B group was higher than that in over-expression of miR-149-5p group, and lower than that in over-expression of Aurora-B group. Conclusion The miR-149-5p can be involved in ESCC progression through regulating the expressions of Aurora-B.