MicroRNA-497 Suppresses Proliferation and Induces Apoptosis in Prostate Cancer Cells

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are a class of endogenously expressed small, non-coding, single-stranded RNAsthat negatively regulate gene expression, mainly by binding to 3’- untranslated regions (3’UTR) of their targetmessenger RNAs (mRNAs), which cause blocks of translation and/or mRNA cleavage. Recently, miRNAprofilingstudies demonstrated the microRNA-497 (miR-497) level to be down-regulated in all prostate carcinomascompared with BPH samples. The purpose of this study was to investigate the potential role of miR-497 inhuman prostate cancer. Proliferation, cell cycle and apoptosis assays were conducted to explore the potentialfunction of miR-497 in human prostate cancer cells. Results showed that miR-497 suppressed cellular growth andinitiated G0/G1 phase arrest of LNCaP and PC-3 cells. We also observed that miR-497 increased the percentageof apoptotic cells by increasing caspase-3/7 activity. Taken together, our results demonstrated that miR-497 caninhibit growth and induce apoptosis by caspase-3 activation in prostate cancer cells, which suggest its use as apotential therapeutic target in the future.