Merican Type Culture Collection (ATCC, Manassas, VA, USA), cultured at 37uC in a humidified atmosphere of 5 CO2, and fed Dulbecco’s modified Eagle’s medium (DMEM) supplemented with 10 fetal calf serum with 100 U/ml penicillin and 100 mg/ml streptomycin. The empty vector, pcDNA3.0, and an miR-195 expression vector, pcDNA3.0-miR-195, were gifts from Dr. Shi-Mei Zhuang (Sun Yatsen University, China) [17]. SCC-15 and CAL27 cells were seeded onto 6-well plates the day before transfection 1655472 to ensure 80 conuence at the time of transfection. Transfection with 4 mg of pcDNA3.0 or pcDNA3.0-miR-195 and 100 nm Cyclin D1 and Bcl-2 siRNA or siRNA control were performed using Lipofectamine 2000 (Invitrogen, Nobiletin Carlsbad, CA) in accordance with the manufacturer’s procedure.Tissue SpecimensPaired primary TSCC samples from anterior portions of the tongue and adjacent histological normal tissues were obtained from 81 patients who were admitted to the Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery of Peking University Hospital of Stomatology between May 2008 and August 2011. The median duration of follow-up was 24 months (range, 9?8 months). None of the patients received treatment before surgery. Tumor tissues and adjacent normal tissues that were at least 1.5 cm distal to the tumor margins were snap-frozen in BIBS39 web liquid nitrogen and then stored at 280uC until use. The clinicopathological characteristics of patients are summarized in Table 1. The clinical tumor node metastasis (TNM) staging of the tumors was classified according to the standards provided by AJCC in 2010 [22]. Among 42 patients who had pathologically metastatic cervical lymph nodes, at least 9 patients were cN0 (clinical negative lymph nodes).Cell Proliferation AssaysThe effects of miR-195 overexpression on SCC-15 and CAL27 cell proliferation were assessed using the Cell Counting Kit-8 (CCK-8, Dojindo, Kumamoto, Japan). Briey, the cells were seeded into 96-well plates (26103 cells/well). After transfection with pcDNA3.0 or pcDNA3.0-miR-195, CCK-8 (10 ml) was added to each well at various time points and incubated at 37uC for 3 h. The absorbance at 450 nm was measured using a microplate spectrophotometer (Bio-Tek Instruments Inc, Winosski, VT).RNA Isolation and Quantitative Reverse-transcription PCR (qRT-PCR)Total RNA, including miRNA, was isolated from tumor and normal tissue samples by using TRIzol reagent (Invitrogen, Carlsbad, CA) according to the manufacturer’s instructions. For miR-195 analysis, the stem-loop RT primer was 59-GTC GTA TCC AGT GCA GGG TCC GAG GTA TTC GCA CTG GAT ACG ACG CCA AT-39 and the amplifying primers were as follows: sense, 59-CGT AGC AGC ACA GAA AT-39 and antisense, 59-GTG CAG GGT CCG AGG T-39 [16]. Primers for qRT-PCR of U6, an mRNA that was used as an internal control, were:sense, 59-CTC GCT TCG GCA GCA CA-39 and antisense, 59-AAC GCT TCA CGA ATT TGC GT-39 [16]. Quantitative PCR was conducted at 95uC for 10 min followed by 40 cycles of 95uC for 15 sec and 60uC for 60 sec in an ABI 7500 real-time PCR system. The relative expression level of miR-195 was normalized to that of U6 by the 22DDCt cycle threshold method [23].Cell Cycle and Apoptosis AnalysisAt 48 h post-transfection, cells were harvested by trypsinization and washed with phosphate-buffered saline (PBS). For cell cycle analysis, the cells were fixed with 70 ethanol at 4uC overnight. On the following day, fixed cells were washed with PBS, treated with RNase A (50 mg/ml) in PBS at 37uC for 20 min, and then mixed.Merican Type Culture Collection (ATCC, Manassas, VA, USA), cultured at 37uC in a humidified atmosphere of 5 CO2, and fed Dulbecco’s modified Eagle’s medium (DMEM) supplemented with 10 fetal calf serum with 100 U/ml penicillin and 100 mg/ml streptomycin. The empty vector, pcDNA3.0, and an miR-195 expression vector, pcDNA3.0-miR-195, were gifts from Dr. Shi-Mei Zhuang (Sun Yatsen University, China) [17]. SCC-15 and CAL27 cells were seeded onto 6-well plates the day before transfection 1655472 to ensure 80 conuence at the time of transfection. Transfection with 4 mg of pcDNA3.0 or pcDNA3.0-miR-195 and 100 nm Cyclin D1 and Bcl-2 siRNA or siRNA control were performed using Lipofectamine 2000 (Invitrogen, Carlsbad, CA) in accordance with the manufacturer’s procedure.Tissue SpecimensPaired primary TSCC samples from anterior portions of the tongue and adjacent histological normal tissues were obtained from 81 patients who were admitted to the Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery of Peking University Hospital of Stomatology between May 2008 and August 2011. The median duration of follow-up was 24 months (range, 9?8 months). None of the patients received treatment before surgery. Tumor tissues and adjacent normal tissues that were at least 1.5 cm distal to the tumor margins were snap-frozen in liquid nitrogen and then stored at 280uC until use. The clinicopathological characteristics of patients are summarized in Table 1. The clinical tumor node metastasis (TNM) staging of the tumors was classified according to the standards provided by AJCC in 2010 [22]. Among 42 patients who had pathologically metastatic cervical lymph nodes, at least 9 patients were cN0 (clinical negative lymph nodes).Cell Proliferation AssaysThe effects of miR-195 overexpression on SCC-15 and CAL27 cell proliferation were assessed using the Cell Counting Kit-8 (CCK-8, Dojindo, Kumamoto, Japan). Briey, the cells were seeded into 96-well plates (26103 cells/well). After transfection with pcDNA3.0 or pcDNA3.0-miR-195, CCK-8 (10 ml) was added to each well at various time points and incubated at 37uC for 3 h. The absorbance at 450 nm was measured using a microplate spectrophotometer (Bio-Tek Instruments Inc, Winosski, VT).RNA Isolation and Quantitative Reverse-transcription PCR (qRT-PCR)Total RNA, including miRNA, was isolated from tumor and normal tissue samples by using TRIzol reagent (Invitrogen, Carlsbad, CA) according to the manufacturer’s instructions. For miR-195 analysis, the stem-loop RT primer was 59-GTC GTA TCC AGT GCA GGG TCC GAG GTA TTC GCA CTG GAT ACG ACG CCA AT-39 and the amplifying primers were as follows: sense, 59-CGT AGC AGC ACA GAA AT-39 and antisense, 59-GTG CAG GGT CCG AGG T-39 [16]. Primers for qRT-PCR of U6, an mRNA that was used as an internal control, were:sense, 59-CTC GCT TCG GCA GCA CA-39 and antisense, 59-AAC GCT TCA CGA ATT TGC GT-39 [16]. Quantitative PCR was conducted at 95uC for 10 min followed by 40 cycles of 95uC for 15 sec and 60uC for 60 sec in an ABI 7500 real-time PCR system. The relative expression level of miR-195 was normalized to that of U6 by the 22DDCt cycle threshold method [23].Cell Cycle and Apoptosis AnalysisAt 48 h post-transfection, cells were harvested by trypsinization and washed with phosphate-buffered saline (PBS). For cell cycle analysis, the cells were fixed with 70 ethanol at 4uC overnight. On the following day, fixed cells were washed with PBS, treated with RNase A (50 mg/ml) in PBS at 37uC for 20 min, and then mixed.