In this study, we aimed at investigating the predictive and prognostic values of miR-125b, miR-221, and miR-222 in glioma and, hopefully, to provide some evidence for novel therapy of glioma.
The oncomiR miR-221 is highly expressed in human gliomas, as confirmed in this study in samples of low and high grade gliomas, as well in the cell lines U251, U373 and T98G.
The miR-221/222 cluster is significantly upregulated in malignant glioma cells and regulates the expression of multiple genes associated with glioma cell proliferation, invasion and apoptosis, which was shown in our previous studies.
In conclusion, our results suggest that miR-221 and -222 regulate glioma tumorigenesis at least in part through the control of PTPμ protein expression.
MiR-221/222 expression was significantly increased in high-grade gliomas compared with low-grade gliomas, and positively correlated with the degree of glioma infiltration.
Our results suggest that miR-221/222 is a regulator of the tumor suppressor gene p27Kip1, and co-suppression of miR-221/222 expression in advanced gliomas may inhibit glioma cell proliferation by a mechanism involving the up-regulation of p27Kip1 in vitro and in vivo.
Several miRNAs have been recently reported to be involved in modulation of glioma development, especially some up-regulated miRNA, such as hsa-miR-21 and hsa-miR-221.