Over-expression of the long non-coding RNA HOTTIP inhibits glioma cell growth by BRE

BACKGROUND: Gliomas are the most common type of primary brain tumour in the central nervous system of adults. The long non-coding RNA (lncRNA) HOXA transcript at the distal tip (HOTTIP) is transcribed from the 5′ tip of the HOXA locus. HOTTIP has recently been shown to be dysregulated and play an important role in the progression of several cancers. However, little is known about whether and how HOTTIP regulates glioma development. METHODS: In this study, we assayed the expression of HOTTIP in glioma tissue samples and glioma cell lines using real-time polymerase chain reaction and defined the biological functions of HOTTIP using the CCK-8 assay, flow cytometry, terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase dUTP nick end labelling (TUNEL assay) and tumour formation assay in a nude mouse model. Finally, we discovered the underlying mechanism using the Apoptosis PCR 384HT Array, Western blot, RNA immunoprecipitation (RIP) and luciferase reporter assay. RESULTS: HOTTIP was aberrantly down-regulated in glioma tissues and glioma cell lines (U87-MG, U118-MG, U251 and A172), and over-expression of HOTTIP inhibited the growth of glioma cell lines in vitro and in vivo. Furthermore, HOTTIP could directly bind to the brain and reproductive expression (BRE) gene and down-regulate BRE gene expression. In addition, we further verified that over-expression of the BRE gene promoted the growth of glioma cell lines in vitro. Finally, over-expression of HOTTIP significantly suppressed the expression of the cyclin A and CDK2 proteins and increased the expression of the P53 protein. However, we found that the over-expression of BRE significantly increased the expression of the cyclin A and CDK2 proteins and suppressed the expression of the P53 protein. Taken together, these findings suggested that high levels of HOTTIP reduced glioma cell growth. Additionally, the mechanism of HOTTIP-mediated reduction of glioma cell growth may involve the suppression of cyclin A and CDK2 protein expression, which increases P53 protein expression via the down-regulation of BRE. CONCLUSIONS: Our studies demonstrated that over-expression of HOTTIP promotes cell apoptosis and inhibits cell growth in U118-MG and U87-MG human glioma cell lines by down-regulating BRE expression to regulate the expression of P53, CDK2 and Cyclin A proteins. The data described in this study indicate that HOTTIP is an interesting candidate for further functional studies in glioma and demonstrate the potential application of HOTTIP in glioma therapy. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s13046-016-0431-y) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.