TY - JOUR TI - Replication Study: The microRNA miR-34a inhibits prostate cancer stem cells and metastasis by directly repressing CD44 AU - Yan, Xuefei AU - Tang, Beibei AU - Chen, Biao AU - Shan, Yongli AU - Yang, Huajun AU - Reproducibility Project: Cancer Biology A2 - Massagué, Joan A2 - Morrison, Sean J A2 - Ventura, Andrea A2 - Liu, Julie VL - 8 PY - 2019 DA - 2019/03/12 SP - e43511 C1 - eLife 2019;8:e43511 DO - 10.7554/eLife.43511 UR - https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.43511 AB - As part of the Reproducibility Project: Cancer Biology, we published a Registered Report (Li et al., 2015), that described how we intended to replicate selected experiments from the paper ‘The microRNA miR-34a inhibits prostate cancer stem cells and metastasis by directly repressing CD44’ (Liu et al., 2011). Here we report the results. We found the microRNA, miR-34a, was expressed at twice the level in CD44+ prostate cancer cells purified from xenograft tumors (LAPC4 cells) compared to CD44- LAPC4 cells, whereas the original study reported miR-34a was underexpressed in CD44+ LAPC4 cells (Figure 1B; Liu et al., 2011). When LAPC4 cells engineered to express miR-34a were injected into mice, we did not observe changes in tumor growth or CD44 expression; however, unexpectedly miR-34a expression was lost in vivo. In the original study, LAPC4 cells expressing miR-34a had a statistically significant reduction in tumor regeneration and reduced CD44 expression compared to control (Figure 4A and Supplemental Figures 4A,B and 5C; Liu et al., 2011). Furthermore, when we tested if miR-34a regulated CD44 through binding sites in the 3’UTR we did not find a statistically significant difference, whereas the original study reported miR-34a decreased CD44 expression that was partially abrogated by mutation of the binding sites in the CD44 3’UTR (Figure 4D; Liu et al., 2011). Finally, where possible, we report meta-analyses for each result. KW - miR-34a KW - metastasis KW - Reproducibility Project: Cancer Biology KW - replication KW - metascience KW - LAPC4 JF - eLife SN - 2050-084X PB - eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd ER -