Analysis of miRNA profiles identified miR-196a as a crucial mediator of aberrant PI3K/AKT signaling in lung cancer cells

// Ilaria Guerriero 1 , Daniela D’Angelo 2 , Pierlorenzo Pallante 2 , Mafalda Santos 1 , Marianna Scrima 1 , Donatella Malanga 3 , Carmela De Marco 3 ,Maria Ravo 4 , Alessandro Weisz 4 , Carmelo Laudanna 3 , Michele Ceccarelli 1, 5 , Geppino Falco 1, 6 , Antonia Rizzuto 7 , Giuseppe Viglietto 1, 3 1 Biogems.c.ar.l., Istituto di Ricerche Genetiche “Gaetano Salvatore”, Ariano Irpino, Avellino, Italy 2 Istituto per l’Endocrinologia e l’Oncologia Sperimentale, IEOS-CNR, c/o Dipartimento di Medicina Molecolare e Biotecnologie Mediche, Università “Federico II” of Napoli, Napoli, Italy 3 Dipartimento di Medicina Sperimentale e Clinica, Università Magna Graecia of Catanzaro, Italy 4 Laboratorio di Medicina Molecolare e Genomica, Dipartimentodi Medicina e Chirurgia, Università di Salerno, Baronissi, Italy 5 Department of Biological and Environmental Studies, Università del Sannio, Benevento, Italy 6 Dipartimento di Biologia, Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II, Complesso Universitario Monte S.Angelo, Napoli, Italy 7 Dipartimento di Scienze Mediche e Chirurgiche, Università Magna Graecia of Catanzaro, Italy Correspondence to: Giuseppe Viglietto, email: viglietto@unicz.it Keywords: NSCLC, PI3K/AKT, microRNA, miR-196a Received: January 11, 2016 Accepted: November 02, 2016 Published: November 17, 2016 ABSTRACT Hyperactivation of the PI3K/AKT pathway is observed in most human cancer including lung carcinomas. Here we have investigated the role of miRNAs as downstream targets of activated PI3K/AKT signaling in Non Small Cell Lung Cancer (NSCLC). To this aim, miRNA profiling was performed in human lung epithelial cells (BEAS-2B) expressing active AKT1 (BEAS-AKT1-E17K), active PI3KCA (BEAS-PIK3CA-E545K) or with silenced PTEN (BEAS-shPTEN). Twenty-four differentially expressed miRNAs common to BEAS-AKT1-E17K, BEAS-PIK3CA-E545K and BEAS-shPTEN cells were identified through this analysis, with miR-196a being the most consistently up-regulated miRNA. Interestingly, miR-196a was significantly overexpressed also in human NSCLC-derived cell lines (n=11) and primary lung cancer samples (n=28). By manipulating the expression of miR-196a in BEAS-2B and NCI-H460 cells, we obtained compelling evidence that this miRNA acts downstream the PI3K/AKT pathway, mediating some of the proliferative, pro-migratory and tumorigenic activity that this pathway exerts in lung epithelial cells, possibly through the regulation of FoxO1, CDKN1B (hereafter p27) and HOXA9.