Low expression of miR-381 is a favorite prognosis factor and enhances the chemosensitivity of osteosarcoma

// Yunchao Li 1 , Chunhua Zhao 2 , Zhibin Yu 2 , Jiarui Chen 3 , Xiaoling She 4 , Peiyao Li 2 , Changhong Liu 2 , Yan Zhang 2 , Jianbo Feng 2 , Haijuan Fu 2 , Bing Wang 1 , Lei Kuang 1 , Lei Li 1 , Guohua Lv 1 , Minghua Wu 2 1 Department of Spinal Surgery, The Second Xiangya Hospital of Central South University, Changsha, Hunan, China 2 Cancer Research Institute, School of Basic Medical Science, Central South University, Key Laboratory of Carcinogenesis and Cancer Invasion, Ministry of Education, Key Laboratory of Carcinogenesis, Ministry of Health, Changsha, Hunan, China 3 Xiangya Nursing School, Central South University, Changsha, Hunan, China 4 Pathology Department, The Second Xiangya Hospital of Central South University, Changsha, Hunan, China Correspondence to: Guohua Lv, email: spinelv@163.com Minghua Wu, email: wuminghua554@aliyun.com Keywords: miR-381, osteosarcoma, LRRC4, chemosensitivity Received: April 09, 2016      Accepted: August 24, 2016      Published: September 06, 2016 ABSTRACT Osteosarcoma (OS) is the most common primary bone malignancy with a poor prognosis for all races and both sexes. In this study, we found that miR-381 is a positive prognosis factor for OS patients that OS patients with a low expression of miR-381 had a longer survival time after surgical intervention, and miR-381 expression promotes MG-63 cell proliferation and cell invasion ability. Our results also showed a strong negative correlation between the expression of miR-381 and LRRC4 (brain relative specific expression gene) in OS tissues. This demonstrated that LRRC4 is a direct target gene of miR-381, and suppressing the expression of miR-381 increases the sensitivity of OS cells to chemotherapeutic drugs through the LRRC4-mediated mTOR pathway. In summary, miR-381 is an important biomarker in directing therapeutic intervention and predicting prognosis in OS patients.