Fig 2: miR-542-3p inhibits invasion of KYSE150 cells. (A) Overexpression of miR-542-3p inhibited the invasive ability of KYSE150 cells, which was reversed by co-transfection with recombinant OTUB1. (B) Quantification of relative invaded cell number in A. ***P<0.0001. miR-542-3p, microRNA-542-3p; OTUB1, ovarian tumor domain-containing ubiquitin aldehyde-binding protein 1.

Fig 3: OTUB1 is a target gene for miR-542-3p in esophageal cancer cells. (A) miR-542-3p mimic reduced luciferase activity of KYSE150 cells transfected with OTUB1 3′UTR-WT. (B) miR-542-3p mimic did not alter luciferase activity of KYSE150 cells co-transfected with OTUB1 3′UTR-Mut. **P<0.01. miR-542-3p, microRNA-542-3p; Mut, mutant; NC, negative control; n.s., not significant; OTUB1, ovarian tumor domain-containing ubiquitin aldehyde-binding protein 1; UTR, untranslated region; WT, wild-type.

Fig 4: miR-542-3p inhibits migration of KYSE150 cells through the regulation of OTUB1. (A) Overexpression of miR-542-3p reduced OTUB1 protein expression in KYSE150 cells, which was reversed by co-transfection of recombinant OTUB1. (B) Overexpression of miR-542-3p inhibited the migratory ability of KYSE150 cells, which was reversed by co-transfection of recombinant OTUB1. (C) The migrated areas in B were quantified using Image Pro Plus and normalized to the miR-NC mimic + pcDNA3.1 group. *P<0.05, **P<0.01 and ***P<0.0001. miR-542-3p, microRNA-542-3p; NC, negative control; OTUB1, ovarian tumor domain-containing ubiquitin aldehyde-binding protein 1.

Fig 5: miR-542-3p expression is decreased in esophageal tumor tissues. (A) Compared with adjacent normal tissues, expression of miR-542-3p was decreased in tumor tissues from 40 patients with esophageal cancer. (B and C) Compared with adjacent normal tissues, expression of OTUB1 (B) mRNA and (C) protein was increased in tumoral tissues from 40 patients with esophageal cancer. (D) Expression of miR-542-3p was negatively correlated with OTUB1 mRNA expression in esophageal tumor tissues. ***P<0.0001. miR-542-3p, microRNA-542-3p; OTUB1, ovarian tumor domain-containing ubiquitin aldehyde-binding protein 1.