Members of the miR-34 family are induced by the tumor suppressor p53 and are known to inhibit epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT) and therefore presumably suppress the early phases of metastasis. Here, we determined that exposure of human colorectal cancer (CRC) cells to the cytokine IL-6 activates the oncogenic STAT3 transcription factor, which directly represses the MIR34A gene via a conserved STAT3-binding site in the first intron. [...]