Objective      To investigate the mechanism of miR-1182 regulating human telomerase reverse transcriptase (hTERT) in gastric cancer cells and to study the effect of miR-1182 on the migration capability of gastric cancer cells.        Methods      MKN28 gastric cancer cells were transfected with miR-1182 mimics. Quantitative

RT-PCR was used to test the level of miR-1182

and Western blot analysis to detect the expression of hTERT. Bioinformatic analysis was carried out to predict the possible binding sites of miR-1182 to hTERT mRNA. Dual-luciferase assay was adopted to analyze the mechanism of miR-1182 acting on hTERT. Transwell migration assay was used to analyze cell migration ability.       Results      The results of quantitative RT-PCR indicated that the relative expression of miR-1182 in the miR-1182 mimics treatment group was higher than that in the control group (10.168±2.645 vs 1.008±0.167

P

0.01). Western blot results suggested that over-expression of miR-1182 could inhibit the expression of hTERT. Dual-luciferase assay results suggested that miR-1182 bond to the open reading frame(ORF) of hTERT

with ORF-1 as the main target site. In Transwell migration assay

the cells passing through the membrane were 23.333±4.509 in visual field in the miR-1182 mimics treatment group and 71.000±4.582 in the control group. The migration ability of the cells in the miR-1182 mimics treatment group was significantly lower than that in the control group (

P

0.01).       Conclusion      MiR-1182 down-regulates hTERT expression by binding to its ORF

and also inhibits the migration capability of gastric cancer cells.