Searching for target genes of miR-429 in HCCLM3 cells

miRNAs are an class of small noncoding RNAs and about 21-25 nucleotides in length. miRNAs inhibit the translation or induce mRNA degradation by binding to the 3’ UTR of target mRNAs and have been identified as the tumor promoters or suppressors regulating the progression of cancers. miR-429, which is a member of an evolutionarily conserved family of miRNAs that includes miR-200b, miR-200a, miR-200c and miR-141, is expressed in various epithelial tissues. Our goal is to search the possible target genes of miR-429 in human liver cancer cell line HCCLM3. We analyzed possible target genes of miR-429 by identifying the shared genes among the down-regulated genes in epithelial cell adhesion molecule (EpCAM) negative HCCLM3 cells which treated with miR-429 mimics and the up-regulated genes in EpCAM positive HCCLM3 cells which treated with Antagomir-429. Magnetic sorted EpCAM negative HCCLM3 cells were treated with 100nM miR-429 mimics or NC mimics for 4 days; Magnetic sorted EpCAM positive HCCLM3 cells were treated with 40μM Antagomir-429 or Antagomir-NC for 4 days. The gene expression profiles were determined by Affymetrix Human U133 plus2.0 array according to the manufacturers’ instructions.