ATG9A modulated by miR-195-5p can boost the malignant progression of cervical cancer cells

Cervical cancer (CC) is a major public health problem, and its molecular mechanism requires further investigation. The goal of this study was to determine the role of miR-195-5p and the autophagy-related protein ATG9A in tumour metastasis, epithelial – mesenchymal transition (EMT), apoptosis, and autophagy of CC cells. Using bioinformatics analysis, we predicted ATG9A as a downstream target gene of miR-195-5p, an integral membrane protein required for autophagosome formation and involved in tumorigenesis. Next, western blotting and Quantitative Real-Time Polymerase Chain Reaction (qRT-PCR) showed that upregulation of miR-195-5p decreased protein and mRNA expression of ATG9A, and downregulation of miR-195-5p promoted ATG9A protein and mRNA expression. In addition, detection of the dual luciferase reporter gene further indicated ATG9A is a direct downstream target gene of miR-195-5p. Finally, the effects of miR-195-5p and ATG9A on CC cell proliferation, migration, invasion, EMT, autophagy, and apoptosis were evaluated in vitro. Our results showed that upregulation of miR-195-5p not only inhibits proliferation, migration, and the EMT of CC cells, but also induces apoptosis and autophagy. Conversely, downregulation of miR-195-5p increased malignant metastasis and the EMT of CC cells, and inhibited apoptosis as well as autophagy. In addition, miR-195-5p targeted and negatively regulated ATG9A, and rescue experiments suggested that overexpression of ATG9A could partially abolish miR-195-5p-mediated suppression of CC cells. Our findings improve our understanding of the mechanism of action of miR-195-5p in the malignant behaviour of CC. miR-195-5p is likely to be a promising cancer suppressor gene, which provides clinical evidence for targeted therapy of CC.