Abstract
Ovarian cancer is one of the most lethal malignant gynecological tumors as a result of difficulties in early-stage detection and a lack of effective treatments for patients with advanced or recurrent cancer. In the present study, we aimed to explore whether some of the microRNA (miRNA) content of serum might be related to ovarian cancer, as well as the role of these miRNAs and their intercellular transport via exosomes in ovarian cancer. We first detected the expression of six candidate miRNAs in ovarian cancer tissues and adjacent nontumor ovarian samples from 36 patients and confirmed the altered expression of four miRNAs. The level of these six candidate miRNAs was also examined in exosomes from patient serum samples. Only the level of miR-101 was altered in both ovarian tissue samples and serum exosomes. After prediction using online bioinformatics tools and confirmation by dual-luciferase assay and immunoblotting, we identified that miR-101 can repress the expression of brain-derived neurotrophic factor by targeting its 3'-UTR. Using Transwell assays, we examined the effect of miR-101 on migration and invasion capacity of ovarian cancer cells. The results indicated that the reduction of miR-101 is mostly related to significant enhanced ovarian cancer cell migration. Thus, the results of the present study indicate that miR-101 content in serum exosomes has potential as a marker for diagnosis of ovarian cancer and that miR-101 mimics are potential therapeutic drugs for the treatment of ovarian cancer.