Lauric Acid Modulates Cancer Associated microRNA Expression and Inhibits the Growth of the Cancer Cell.

Our objective was to speculate the miRNA expression profile in lauric acid treated and untreated cancerous cell lines. And further study the metabolic pathways of the targeted tumour suppressor and oncogenes.The KB cells and HepG2 cells were treated with lauric acid and miRNA was isolated and the expression of tumour suppressor and oncogenic miRNA was measured by quantitative PCR. The untreated cells were used as control. The metabolic pathways of the target tumour suppressor and oncogenes was examined by GeneMANIA software.Interestingly the lauric acid treatment suppresses the expression of oncogenic miRNA and significantly upregulated the expression of some tumour suppressor miRNAs. GeneMANIA metabolic pathway revealed that the upregulated tumour suppressor miRNAs regulate several cancer-associated pathways such as DNA damage, signal transduction p53 class mediator, stem cell differentiation, cell growth, cell cycle phase transition, apoptotic signalling pathway, cellular response to stress and radiation etc. whereas oncogenic miRNAs regulate the cancer-associated pathway like cell cycle phase transition, apoptotic signalling pathway, cell growth, response to oxidative stress, immune response activating cell surface protein signalling pathway, cyclin dependent protein kinase activity and epidermal growth factor receptor signalling pathways, etc. Conclusion: In our study, we found that lauric acid works as an anticancer agent by altering the expression of miRNAs.