Pterostilbene Affects Gastric Cancer Cell Proliferation and Epithelial Mesenchymal Transition (EMT) by Targeting miR-126-3p

The incidence of digestive system tumors has been increasing in recent years. Gastric cancer (GC) is one of leading causes of cancer-related mortality. Although a lot of research has been conducted, the effect of GC treatment is still not good. Pterostilbene (PT) has pro-apoptosis and anti-proliferation effects on solid tumors but the effect of PT on GC is unclear. Our study analyzed the effect of PT on GC and miR-126-3p, and provided a reliable reference for future clinical treatment of GC. Through Real time PCR, we first determined that miR-126-3p was down-regulated in GC, which is not related to general characteristics of patients, including gender and age, but is related to differentiation, metastasis, and tumor TNM pathological staging, suggesting that miR-126-3 could be used for predicting the occurrence and prognosis of cancer. In vitro experiments confirmed that further down-regulation of miR-126-3p can increase tumor cell proliferation, decrease apoptosis, promote invasion, and inhibit EMT. On the other hand, overexpression of miR-126-3p inhibited cancer cell-related activities, but promoted EMT. Administration of PT suppressed GC cell activity, inhibited EMT, and increased the expression of miR-126-3p, indicating that PT may affect GC cells by regulating miR-126-3p, which may be one of options for new treatments of GC in the future.