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RUNX3 expression is lost in glioma and its restoration causes drastic suppression of tumor invasion and migration

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Abstract

Purpose

The aim of this study is to investigate whether the expression of RUNX3 is related to the development of glioma, and the role of RUNX3 in glioma cells growth, invasion and migration.

Methods

We analyzed the protein expression of RUNX3 by immunohistochemistry in 188 glioma tissues, 8 normal brain tissues and 8 tumor adjacent normal brain tissues using tissue microarray technique. We studied whether RUNX3 restoration can suppress glioma cells growth, invasion and migration by performing MTT cell proliferation assay, matrigel cell invasion assay, wound-healing assay and migration assay. We also detected MMP-2 protein expression and enzyme activity by western blot analysis and gelatin zymography.

Results

We found that RUNX3 expression was decreased in benign tumor and malignant tumor compared with tumor adjacent normal brain tissue (P < 0.01 and P < 0.05, respectively). We did not find any correlation between RUNX3 expression and clinicopathological parameters. In addition, we demonstrated that re-expression of RUNX3 in glioma cells resulted in significantly inhibited cell invasion and migration abilities. This reduced cell invasion and migration abilities were due to MMP-2 protein expression and enzyme activity suppression after RUNX3 restoration.

Conclusions

Our data indicated that RUNX3 expression is significantly decreased in human glioma, and targeting of the RUNX3 pathway may constitute a potential treatment modality for glioma.

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Acknowledgments

This project is supported by grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 30972976, 81071854), the Program for New Century Excellent Talents in University (NCET-08-0700) and Xuzhou Medical College (No. 2010KJZ03).

Conflict of interest

We declare that we have no conflict of interest.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Neurosurgery, The First Affiliated Hospital of Soochow University, 188 Shizi Street, Suzhou, 215006, Jiangsu Province, China

    Peng-Jin Mei & Zheng-Quan Yu

  2. Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Biological Cancer Therapy, Xuzhou Medical College, 84 West Huaihai Road, Xuzhou, 221002, Jiangsu Province, China

    Jin Bai & Jun-Nian Zheng

  3. School of Pathology, Xuzhou Medical College, Xuzhou, 221002, China

    Hui Liu & Yong-Ping Wu

  4. The First Affiliated Hospital of Xuzhou Medical College, Xuzhou, 221002, China

    Hui Liu, Chen Li & Jun-Nian Zheng

Authors
  1. Peng-Jin Mei
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  2. Jin Bai
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  3. Hui Liu
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  4. Chen Li
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  5. Yong-Ping Wu
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  6. Zheng-Quan Yu
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  7. Jun-Nian Zheng
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Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Zheng-Quan Yu or Jun-Nian Zheng.

Additional information

Peng-Jin Mei and Jin Bai contributed equally to this article.

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Mei, PJ., Bai, J., Liu, H. et al. RUNX3 expression is lost in glioma and its restoration causes drastic suppression of tumor invasion and migration. J Cancer Res Clin Oncol 137, 1823–1830 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00432-011-1063-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00432-011-1063-4

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