URI promotes the migration and invasion of human cervical cancer cells potentially via upregulation of vimentin expression.

URI is known to act as an oncoprotein in several tumors. Our previous studies have shown that URI is associated with the migration process in cervical and gastric cancer cells, but the mechanisms remain to be determined. Given the fact that URI positively regulates vimentin expression, we therefore investigated how URI regulated vimentin expression affects the migration and invasion of cells from two human cervical cancer cell lines HeLa and C33A, which differentially express URI. We have shown that knock-down of URI in HeLa cells using URI siRNA caused decreased vimentin mRNA and protein levels along with attenuated cell motility. Meanwhile, overexpression of URI by transfection of PCMV6-URI in C33A cells resulted in increased vimentin expression and enhanced cell migration and invasion. We have also used TGF-β to induce vimentin expression, which enhanced the cell migration and invasion abilities affected by URI, while inhibition of vimentin by siRNA attenuated URI's effect on cell migration and invasion. In addition, we have performed luciferase reporter and ChIP assays, and the results support that URI indirectly enhances the activity of vimentin promoter. Taken together, our results suggest that URI plays essential roles in the migration and invasion of human cervical cancer cells, possibly via targeting vimentin expression.