Fig. 4

Identification of putative targets of miR-152-3p in PCa cell lines. a Genes selected for validation in our experimental settings: combining in silico prediction targets with genome-wide expression using GeneChip® Human Exon ST Array. b MiR-152-3p overexpression in LNCaP cells associated with significant decreased levels of BEND4 (~ 40%), ELOVL2 (52%) and TMEM97 (40%) as determined by RT-qPCR. c PC3 miR-152-3p’s transfected cells displayed significantly decreased NOL4 expression (approximately 50%). d, e Effect of 5-Aza-CdR treatment in the selected target genes transcript levels in LNCaP revealed TMEM97 downregulation (up to 35%), whereas in PC3 cells it associated with significantly decreased NOL4 transcript levels (− 30%). NOL4 and TMEM97 upregulation in PCa tissues. f Significantly higher NOL4 and TMEM97 expression in PCa tissue samples (n = 100) compared with morphologically normal prostate tissue (n = 14), determined by RT-qPCR. g Expression levels in TCGA Prostate by RNA-seq cohort (NAT: n = 52; PCa: n = 497). MNPT: Morphologically Normal Prostate Tissue; NAT: Normal Adjacent Tissue; PCa: Prostate Cancer. Error bars represent the s.d. for three biological replicates. Mann-Whitney U-test: *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001