Abstract: Objective To explore the inhibitory effect of targeting miRNA on the expression of vascular endothelial growth
factor (VEGF) and cell proliferation in malignant melanoma (MM) SKmel-28 cells. Methods Recombination miRNA plasmid
vectors targeting VEGF gene were transfected into SKmel-28 cells via Lipofectamine 2000. The integrity of the inserted
fragments was detected using colony PCR and sequence analysis. The expression of VEGF mRNA and protein in SKmel-28
cells was detected by RT-PCR and Western blotting, respectively. MTS assay was used to determine the inhibitory effect of a
selected targeting miRNA on SKmel-28 cell proliferation, and the apoptosis of SKmel-28 cells was detected using flow
cytometry. Results Transfection with the targeting miRNAs significantly down-regulated the expressions of VEGF mRNA and
protein in SKmel-28 cells (P<0.01), and the miRNA construct X-26-2n-1 showed the highest inhibitory effect. The miRNA
X-26-2n-1 significantly suppressed SKmel-28 cell proliferation in a time-dependent manner (P<0.01) and increased the early,
late and overall apoptosis rates of the cells (P<0.01). Conclusion The targeting miRNA we constructed can effectively suppress
the cell proliferation and induce apoptosis of SKmel-28 cells by down-regulating the expressions of VEGF gene.