Quantitative Proteomics Reveals Diverse Roles of miR-148a from Gastric Cancer Progression to Neurological Development

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are noncoding RNAs that control gene expression
either by degradation of mRNAs or inhibition of protein translation.
miR-148a has been reported to have the impacts on tumor progression.
Here, a quantitative proteomics combined with stable isotope labeling
was applied to identify the global profile of miR-148a-regulated downstream
proteins. The data have been deposited to the ProteomeXchange with
identifier PXD000190. A total of 2938 proteins were quantified, and
55 proteins were considered to be regulated by miR-148a. We found
that not only proteins associated with cancer progression but also
molecules involved in neural development were regulated by miR-148a.
This study is the first to identify the function of miR-148a in neural
development by using a proteomic approach. Analysis of a public clinical
database also showed that the patients with neural diseases could
display abnormal expression of miR-148a. Moreover, silencing of miR-148a
led to the abnormal morphology and decreased expression of neuron-related
markers in the developing brain of zebrafish. These results provided
important insight into the regulation of neurological development
elicited by miR-148a.