Small non-coding RNAs, microRNAs (miRNA), inhibit the translation or accelerate the degradation of message RNA (mRNA) by targeting the 3'-untranslated region (3'-UTR) in regulating growth and survival through gene suppression. Deregulated miRNA expression contributes to disease progression in several cancers types, including pancreatic cancers (PaCa). PaCa tissues and cells exhibit decreased miRNA, elevated cyclooxygenase (COX)-2 and increased prostaglandin E-2 (PGE(2)) resulting in increased cancer growth and metastases. Human PaCa cell lines were used to demonstrate that restoration of miRNA-143 (miR-143) regulates COX-2 and inhibits cell proliferation. miR-143 were detected at fold levels of 0.41 +/- 0.06 in AsPC-1, 0.20 +/- 0.05 in Capan-2 and 0.10 +/- 0.02 in MIA PaCa-2. miR-143 was not detected in BxPC-3, HPAF-II and Panc-1 which correlated with elevated mitogen-activated kinase (MAPK) and MAPK kinase (MEK) activation. Treatment with 10 mu M of MEK inhibitor U0126 or PD98059 increased miR-143, respectively, by 187 +/- 18 and 152 +/- 26-fold in BxPC-3 and 182 +/- 7 and 136 +/- 9-fold in HPAF-II. miR-143 transfection diminished COX-2 mRNA stability at 60 min by 2.6 +/- 0.3-fold in BxPC-3 and 2.5 +/- 0.2-fold in HPAF-II. COX-2 expression and cellular proliferation in BxPC-3 and HPAF-II inversely correlated with increasing miR-143. PGE(2) levels decreased by 39.3 +/- 5.0% in BxPC-3 and 48.0 +/- 3.0% in HPAF-II transfected with miR-143. Restoration of miR-143 in PaCa cells suppressed of COX-2, PGE(2), cellular proliferation and MEK/MAPK activation, implicating this pathway in regulating miR-143 expression. (c) 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.