Abstract
Esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) is the predominant histologic subtype of esophageal cancer and is characterized by a high mortality rate and geographic differences in incidence. microRNAs (miRNAs) are small, non-coding RNAs that play important roles in the regulation of genes associated with cancer development and progression. In the present study, we demonstrated that microRNA-100 (miR‑100) demonstrated markedly lower expression in the ESCC tissues as validated by quantitative reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR). Furthermore, we found that the downregulation of miR-100 was significantly correlated with the status of lymph node metastasis in the 34 ESCC patients. Next, we investigated the role and mechanism of miR-100 in ESCC cells and found that miR-100 modulated the migration and invasion but not the apoptosis and proliferation of ESCC cells in vitro. We further demonstrated that miR-100 directly targeted the mTOR 3'UTR and repressed the expression of mTOR, a tumor-related gene. Similarly, miR-100 has been reported as a tumor suppressor by controlling cell migration and invasion, as it can target mTOR genes. These results provide insight into the potential mechanisms of miR-100 in the pathogenesis of ESCC.