Quantitative immunohistochemical staining results revealed that CRC tissues with a high level of miR-543 had low expression of KRAS, MTA1 and HMGA2, whereas CRC tissues with a low level of miR-543 exhibited high expression of KRAS, MTA1 and HMGA2, indicating that miR-543 expression is inversely correlated with the levels of KRAS, MTA1 and HMGA2 in clinical CRC tissues (Figure 7). Here, HMGA2 is linked to colorectal carcinoma.