Supplementary Fig. S5.

Hypothetical model of miR-338-5p involved in metastatic progression of human colorectal cancer. MiR-338-5p is located at an intronic region within AATK gene. MiR-338-5p cleaves PIK3C3 mRNA and inhibits the membrane nucleation of autophagosome by phosphorylation of phosphatidylinositol (PI). Inhibited autophagy then suppresses the degradation of Snail and Twist and promotes the tumour metastasis through EMT pathway. But, autophagy could not reverse this pathway completely, indicating that miR-338-5p may promote metastasis of CRC by inhibiting other target genes.