Downregulation Of microRNA-133b And Its Clinical Value In Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer

Background: Previous studies have investigated the expression of miR-133b in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC); however, its underlying mechanism in relation to the pathogenesis of NSCLC remains unclear. Methods: The aim of this study was to investigate the correlation between miR-133b expression and clinical parameters based on the Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and real-time quantitative real-time PCR (RT-qPCR) data. Gene Ontology (GO) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) analyses were performed to identify the biological function of miR-133b. A protein-protein interaction (PPI) network was constructed to screen for hub genes. The Gene Expression Profiling Interaction Analysis (GEPIA) and the Human Protein Atlas databases (HPAD) were employed to validate the hub genes. The cBioPortal database was used to identify neighboring genes with alteration frequencies greater than 20% gene alterations. Results: miR-133b was downregulated in NSCLC tissues, and expression was correlated with lymph node metastasis (P < 0.05). A total of 362 genes were considered as the potential targets of miR-133b in NSCLC. These candidate target genes highly enriched in various key pathways such as the PI3K-Akt pathways, P53 signal pathways, and ECM-receptor interaction. PPI revealed 10 genes as hub genes with node degrees >= 10. Conclusion: The study validated that miR-133b is downregulated in NSCLC. In addition, miR-133b might function as a biomarker for the diagnosis and prognosis of NSCLC. Bioinformatics analysis revealed that miR-133b could be involved in NSCLC metastasis.