Long non-coding RNA HOTAIRM1 promotes proliferation and inhibits apoptosis of glioma cells by regulating the miR-873-5p/ZEB2 axis

BACKGROUND: Glioblastoma is one of the most common malignant brain tumors. Conventional clinical treatment of glioblastoma is not sufficient, and the molecular mechanism underlying the initiation and development of this disease remains unclear. Our study aimed to explore the expression and function of miR-873a-5p in glioblastoma and related molecular mechanism. METHODS: We analyzed the most dysregulated microRNAs from the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) database and examined the expression of miR-873-5p in 20 glioblastoma tissues compared with ten normal brain tissues collected in the Zhejiang Tongde Hospital. We then overexpressed or inhibited miR-873-5p expression in U87 glioblastoma cell lines and analyzed the phenotype using the cell counting kit-8 assay, wound healing assay, and apoptosis. In addition, we predicted upstream and downstream genes of miR-873-5p in glioblastoma using bioinformatics analysis and tested our hypothesis in U87 cells using the luciferase reporter gene assay and Western blotting assay. The differences between two groups were analyzed by Student's t test. The Kruskal-Wallis test was used for the comparison of multiple groups. A P < 0.05 was considered to be significant. RESULTS: The miR-873-5p was downregulated in glioblastoma tissues compared with that in normal brain tissues (normal vs. tumor, 0.762 ± 0.231 vs. 0.378 ± 0.114, t = 4.540, P < 0.01). Overexpression of miR-873-5p inhibited cell growth (t = 6.095, P < 0.01) and migration (t = 3.142, P < 0.01) and promoted cell apoptosis (t = 4.861, P < 0.01), while inhibition of miR-873-5p had the opposite effect. Mechanistically, the long non-coding RNA HOTAIRM1 was found to act as a sponge of miR-873-5p to activate ZEB2 expression in U87 cells. CONCLUSIONS: We uncovered a novel HOTAIRM1/miR-873-5p/ZEB2 axis in glioblastoma cells, providing new insight into glioblastoma progression and a theoretical basis for the treatment of glioblastoma.