MicroRNA (miR)-211 loss promotes metabolic vulnerability and BRAF inhibitor sensitivity in melanoma

We report that miR-211 loss-of-function in the pigmented melanoma cell line SKMEL-28 slowed growth and invasion in vitro, inhibited phosphoinositol-3-kinase (PI3K) signaling, rendered these melanoma cells metabolically vulnerable by attenuating mitochondrial respiration and tricarboxylic acid (TCA) cycling and inhibited melanoma growth in vivo. mRNA profiles of SKMEL28 (WT) and SK-P8-2(miR-211 deletion) cells and xenografts in SCID mice were generated by deep sequencing using Illumina HiSeq 2500.