Therapeutic silencing of miR-10b inhibits metastasis in a mouse mammary tumor model

Efforts to develop drugs that would prevent a primary tumor from spreading to new sites have been hampered by a lack of metastasis-specific targets. Working with a mouse model of breast cancer, Ma et al. show for the first time that metastasis formation can be substantially reduced by inhibition of a pro-metastatic microRNA. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are increasingly implicated in the regulation of metastasis. Despite their potential as targets for anti-metastatic therapy, miRNAs have only been silenced in normal tissues of rodents and nonhuman primates. Therefore, the development of effective approaches for sequence-specific inhibition of miRNAs in tumors remains a scientific and clinical challenge. Here we show that systemic treatment of tumor-bearing mice with miR-10b antagomirs—a class of chemically modified anti-miRNA oligonucleotide—suppresses breast cancer metastasis. Both in vitro and in vivo, silencing of miR-10b with antagomirs significantly decreases miR-10b levels and increases the levels of a functionally important miR-10b target, Hoxd10. Administration of miR-10b antagomirs to mice bearing highly metastatic cells does not reduce primary mammary tumor growth but markedly suppresses formation of lung metastases in a sequence-specific manner. The miR-10b antagomir, which is well tolerated by normal animals, appears to be a promising candidate for the development of new anti-metastasis agents.