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microRNAs (miRNAs) regulate gene expression at the post-transcriptional level and play important roles in tumor initiation and progression. Recently, we examined the global miRNA expression profile of esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) and demonstrated that miR-92a was highly expressed in tumor tissues. In this study, we found that the upregulation of miR-92a was significantly correlated with the status of lymph node metastasis and TNM stage in 107 ESCC patients. Moreover, the upregulation of miR-92a was associated with poor survival of ESCC patients and might be used as an independent prognostic factor. Next, we investigated the role and mechanism of miR-92a in ESCC cells, and found that miR-92a modulated the migration and invasion but not apoptosis and proliferation of ESCC cells in vitro. We further demonstrated that miR-92a directly targeted the CDH1 3′- UTR and repressed the expression of CDH1, a tumor metastasis suppressor. In addition, restoring of miR-92a-resistant CDH1 expression in miR-92a-overexpression cells recovered the pro-metastasis activity of miR-92a. Taken together, we demonstrated that miR-92a promotes ESCC cell migration and invasion at least partially via suppression of CDH1 expression, and patients with up-regulated miR-92a are prone to lymph node metastasis and thus have poor prognosis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The property of matter-wave vector solitons in a spin-1 Bose-Einstein condensate with spin-orbit and Zeeman couplings is investigated by multiscale perturbation method. The excitation spectrum and the corresponding state vectors of the system are obtained analytically, and they can be adjusted by the parameters of the system. The bright and dark vector solitons are formulated by reducing the three-component coupled Gross-Pitaeviskii equations to a standard nonlinear Schrödinger equation, which has the solutions of the bright and dark solitons with positive or negative mass depending on the product of the effective dispersive and nonlinear coefficients. The moving vector solitons are demonstrated by adjusting specific momentum near the energy minimum. Finally, the magnetized features of the vector solitons are discussed by the spin polarization of the system. • The excitation spectrum for the vector solitons, determined by the parameters of the system, is obtained analytically. • The analytical bright and dark vector solitons are formulated and the moving solitons are demonstrated by adjusting specific momentum. • The solitons with positive or negative mass depending on the product of the effective dispersive and nonlinear coefficients are analyzed. • The magnetized features affected by spin-orbit and Zeeman couplings are discussed by the spin polarization of the system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]