On treatment with 5-azadC, MIR129-2 was demethylated (Figure 4A; Additional file 1: Figure S4), with a corresponding increase in MIR129 expression (Figure 4B) and downregulation of SOX4 mRNA (Figure 4C), which has been shown to be a direct target of MIR129. To validate the tumor suppressive effect of MIR129, MIR129 was overexpressed in JEKO-1 cells (Figure 5A). Here, SOX4 is linked to neoplasm.