SMAD3 and chordoma: To investigate the mechanism by which miR-16-5p affects chordoma cells, we used bioinformatics tools (TargetScan, miRanda and PicTar) to predict its potential target genes, and Smad3 was identified as a likely target of miR-16-5p because there was complementarity between miR-16-5p and the Smad3 3′-UTR (Fig. 5a).