MiR-182 is up-regulated and targeting Cebpa in hepatocellular carcinoma

MicroRNAs(miRNAs) are endogenous small non-coding RNAs that repress their targets at post transcriptional level.Existing studies have shown that miRNAs are important regulatory genes in hepatocellular carcinoma(HCC),as either tumor suppressors or oncogenes.MiR-122 is normally downregulated in HCC and regarded as a tumor suppressor.Recently miR-122 has been reported to be regulated by CEBPA,which is then involved in a novel pathway to influence proliferation of tumor cells.However it is unknown whether CEBPA is regulated by miRNAs in HCC.In this study,we find that miR-182 is upregulated in HCC model rat,and represses CEBPA in both rat and human.This further improves the current CEBPA/miR-122 pathway that controls the proliferation of tumor cells.These results suggest that miR-182 is a potential oncogene in HCC and could be used as a diagnostic marker and drug target of HCC.