Overexpression of miRNA-143 Inhibits Colon Cancer Cell Proliferation by Inhibiting Glucose Uptake

MiRNA-143 overexpression is related to upregulated blood glucose level in diabetic mice, and downregulated miRNA-143 has been observed in several types of cancers, indicating its role as a tumor suppression miRNA. Glucose metabolism plays pivotal roles in tumor growth. Therefore, miRNA-143 may target glucose metabolism to inhibit tumor growth. Up to now, the functionality of miRNA-143 in colon cancer is still largely unknown. Our study was carried out to investigate the role of miRNA-143 in colon cancer and to explore the interactions between miRNA-143 and glucose uptake pathway. In this study we observed that miRNA-143 was downregulated in both colon biopsies (tumor tissues for colon cancer patients) and whole blood of colon patients than in healthy controls. Downregulation of miRNA-143 effectively distinguished colon cancer patients from healthy controls. Expression levels of miRNA-143 were found to be significantly correlated with tumor size but not distant tumor metastasis. MiRNA-143 overexpression inhibited glucose uptake and glucose transporter 1 (GLUT1) expression in colon cancer cells. MiRNA-143 overexpression also inhibited colon cancer cell proliferation. We therefore concluded that overexpression of miRNA-143 inhibited colon cancer cell proliferation by inhibiting glucose uptake.