MicroRNA-876-5p inhibits cell proliferation, migration and invasion by targeting c-Met in osteosarcoma.

Recently, aberrant expression of miR-876-5p has been reported to participate in the progression of several human cancers. However, the expression and function of miR-876-5p in osteosarcoma (OS) are still unknown. Here, we found that the expression of miR-876-5p was significantly down-regulated in OS tissues compared to para-cancerous tissues. Clinical association analysis indicated that underexpression of miR-876-5p was positively correlated with advanced clinical stage and poor differentiation. More importantly, OS patients with low miR-876-5p level had a significant shorter overall survival compared to miR-876-5p high-expressing patients. In addition, gain- and loss-of-function experiments demonstrated that miR-876-5p restoration suppressed whereas miR-876-5p knockdown promoted cell proliferation, migration and invasion in both U2OS and MG63 cells. In vivo studies revealed that miR-876-5p overexpression inhibited tumour growth of OS in mice. Mechanistically, miR-876-5p reduced c-Met abundance in OS cells and inversely correlated c-Met expression in OS tissues. Herein, c-Met was recognized as a direct target of miR-876-5p using luciferase reporter assay. Notably, c-Met restoration rescued miR-876-5p attenuated the proliferation, migration and invasion of OS cells. In conclusion, these findings indicate that miR-876-5p may be used as a potential therapeutic target and promising biomarker for the diagnosis and prognosis of OS.