Transcriptomic-based identification of miR-125a novel targets in human hepatocarcinoma cells

The experimental work unveils novel targets of hsa-miR-125a-5p relevant in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). In particular, a genome-wide perspective of the whole miR-125a targetome has been achieved. First, two different HCC cell lines were subjected to a miRNA boosting by mimic transfections, resulting in many de-regulated genes, as observed by a transcriptomic approach. Then, the merging of down-regulated genes with results from bioinformatic predictive tools yielded a number of miR-125a direct targets candidates. Finally, those potential targets were further experimentally validated. This study could pave the way to piece together the RNA regulatory networks governed by miR-125a impacting on hepatocarcinogenesis and be exploited in the future for identifying novel biomarkers and therapeutic targets in HCC.