TRIM28 is overexpressed in glioma and associated with tumor progression

BACKGROUND: Tripartite motif containing 28 (TRIM28) is a transcriptional co-factor targeting many genes with pleiotropic biological activities, but the study on the role of TRIM28 in glioma is rare. METHODS: To explore the function of TRIM28 in glioma, we first detected the expression levels of TRIM28 in glioma tissues and analyzed the correlations of TRIM28 expression with clinicopathological variables of patients in 85 cases of glioma. Meanwhile, we used shRNA to knockdown TRIM28 in glioma cell lines to detect the biological functions of TRIM28 in cell and animal experiments. RESULTS: We found that TRIM28 was expressed at significantly higher level in glioma tissues than in non-tumor brain, and TRIM28 expression correlated significantly with tumor malignancy. Furthermore, TRIM28 higher expression was also correlated with poor survival of glioma patients (P<0.01). Functionally, knockdown of TRIM28 could significantly inhibit cell proliferation and migration in glioma cells. Additionally, we found that TRIM28 could inhibit the expression of E-cadherin significantly by reducing its mRNA stability at the post-transcriptional level. CONCLUSION: Our results suggest that TRIM28 overexpression is correlated with glioma malignant progression and patients’ poor survival, so targeting TRIM28 could be an efficacious strategy in glioma.