METTL3-mediated m6A modification promotes processing and maturation of pri-miRNA-19a to facilitate nasopharyngeal carcinoma cell proliferation and invasion.

The interplay between N6-methyladenosine (m6A) modification and microRNAs (miRs) participates in cancer progression. This study is conducted to explore the role of miR-19a-3p in nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) cell proliferation and invasion. Reverse transcription quantitative polymerase chain reaction and Western blot showed that miR-19a-3p was upregulated in NPC tissues and cells and related to poor prognosis, methyltransferase-like 3 (METTL3) was highly expressed, whereas BMP and activin membrane-bound inhibitor (BAMBI) was weakly expressed in NPC tissues and cells. miR-19a-3p downregulation inhibited cell proliferation and invasion, whereas miR-19a-3p overexpression played the opposite role. m6A quantification and m6A RNA immunoprecipitation assays showed that METTL3-mediated m6A modification promoted the processing and maturation of pri-miR-19a via DiGeorge syndrome critical region gene 8 (DGCR8). Dual-luciferase assay showed that BAMBI was a target of miR-19a-3p. The rescue experiments showed that BAMBI downregulation reversed the role of miR-19a-3p inhibition in NPC cells. A xenograft tumor model showed that METTL3 downregulation inhibited tumor growth via the miR-19a-3p/BAMBI in vivo. Overall, our findings elicited that METTL3-mediated m6A modification facilitated the processing and maturation of pri-miR-19a via DGCR8 to upregulate miR-19a-3p, and miR-19a-3p inhibited BAMBI expression to promote NPC cell proliferation and invasion, thus driving NPC progression.