Abstract: Objective The Objective of this study were to investigate the effects of miR-219 on cell proliferation, invasion and metastasis and the correlation between PRKCI and miR-219 expression in tongue squamous cell carcinoma. Methods The luciferase reporter gene assay was used to verify the predicted target gene.The expression of PRKCI in tongue squamous cell carcinoma cells overexpressed exogenous miR-219 was detected by qRT-PCR and Western blot.Finally, the reverse effects of PRKCI on the proliferation, clone formation, migration and invasion ability were examined in stable overexpressing miR-219 tongue squamous cell carcinoma(TSCC)cells by MTT assay, cell plate cloning assay, scratch assay and Transwell chamber assays.qRT-PCR assay was used to determine the expression of PRKCI gene and miR-219 in tongue squamous cell carcinoma tissues, and the relationship between PRKCI and miR-219 was further analyzed. Results The bioinformatics analysis predicted that the downstream target gene of miR-219 was PRKCI.The double luciferase reporter gene assay showed that miR-219 was able to reduce the fluorescence activity of the wild type PRKCI reporter vector.In addition, qRT-PCR and Western blot also showed that miR-219 could down-regulate the expression of PRKCI in TSCC cells.MTT results showed that overexpression of PRKCI could reverse the inhibitory effect of miR-219 on the proliferation of TSCC cells, and further demonstrated that the overexpression of PRKCI could reverse the inhibitory effect of miR-219 on the proliferation, invasion and metastasis of TSCC cells by cell plate cloning, scratch and Transwell experiments. Conclusion MiR-219 plays a role in inhibiting tumor by directly targeting PRKCI and negatively regulating the expression of PRKCI.miR-219 was negatively correlated with PRKCI expression in tongue squamous cell carcinoma.

Key words: Squamous cell carcinoma of the tongue, miR-219, PRKCI