BackgroundDysfunctions of long non-coding RNA (lncRNAs) have been associated with the initiation and progression of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), but the clinicopathologic significance and potential role of lncRNA PTTG3P (pituitary tumor-transforming 3, pseudogene) in HCC remains largely unknown.MethodsWe compared the expression profiles of lncRNAs in 3 HCC tumor tissues and adjacent non-tumor tissues by microarrays. In situ hybridization (ISH) and quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) were applied to assess the level of PTTG3P and prognostic values of PTTG3P were assayed in two HCC cohorts (n = 46 and 90). Artificial modulation of PTTG3P (down- and over-expression) was performed to explore the role of PTTG3P in tumor growth and metastasis in vitro and in vivo. Involvement of PTTG1 (pituitary tumor-transforming 1), PI3K/AKT signaling and its downstream signals were validated by qRT-PCR and western blot.ResultsWe found that PTTG3P was frequently up-regulated in HCC and its level was positively correlated to tumor size, TNM stage and poor survival of patients with HCC. Enforced expression of PTTG3P significantly promoted cell proliferation, migration, and invasion in vitro, as well as tumorigenesis and metastasis in vivo. Conversely, PTTG3P knockdown had opposite effects. Mechanistically, over-expression of PTTG3P up-regulated PTTG1, activated PI3K/AKT signaling and its downstream signals including cell cycle progression, cell apoptosis and epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT)-associated genes.ConclusionsOur findings suggest that PTTG3P, a valuable marker of HCC prognosis, promotes tumor growth and metastasis via up-regulating PTTG1 and activating PI3K/AKT signaling in HCC and might represent a potential target for gene-based therapy.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1186/s12943-018-0841-x) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

OBJECTIVE Glioma is the most common form of brain tumor and has high lethality. The authors of this study aimed to elucidate the efficiency of preoperative inflammatory markers, including neutrophil/lymphocyte ratio (NLR), derived NLR (dNLR), platelet/lymphocyte ratio (PLR), lymphocyte/monocyte ratio (LMR), and prognostic nutritional index (PNI), and their paired combinations as tools for the preoperative diagnosis of glioma, with particular interest in its most aggressive form, glioblastoma (GBM). METHODS The medical records of patients newly diagnosed with glioma, acoustic neuroma, meningioma, or nonlesional epilepsy at 3 hospitals between January 2011 and February 2016 were collected and retrospectively analyzed. The values of NLR, dNLR, PLR, LMR, and PNI were compared among patients suffering from glioma, acoustic neuroma, meningioma, and nonlesional epilepsy and healthy controls by using nonparametric tests. Correlations between NLR, dNLR, PLR, LMR, PNI, and tumor grade were analyzed. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis was performed to evaluate the diagnostic significance of NLR, dNLR, PLR, LMR, PNI, and their paired combinations for glioma, particularly GBM. RESULTS A total of 750 patients with glioma (Grade I, 81 patients; Grade II, 208 patients; Grade III, 169 patients; Grade IV [GBM], 292 patients), 44 with acoustic neuroma, 271 with meningioma, 102 with nonlesional epilepsy, and 682 healthy controls were included in this study. Compared with healthy controls and patients with acoustic neuroma, meningioma, or nonlesional epilepsy, the patients with glioma had higher values of preoperative NLR and dNLR as well as lower values of LMR and PNI, whereas PLR was higher in glioma patients than in healthy controls and patients with nonlesional epilepsy. Subgroup analysis revealed a positive correlation between NLR, dNLR, PLR, and tumor grade but a negative correlation between LMR, PNI, and tumor grade in glioma. For glioma diagnosis, the area under the curve (AUC) obtained from the ROC curve was 0.722 (0.697-0.747) for NLR, 0.696 (0.670-0.722) for dNLR, 0.576 (0.549-0.604) for PLR, 0.760 (0.738-0.783) for LMR, and 0.672 (0.646-0.698) for PNI. The best diagnostic performance was obtained with the combination of NLR+LMR and dNLR+LMR, with AUCs of 0.777 and 0.778, respectively. Additionally, NLR (AUC 0.860, 95% CI 0.832-0.887), dNLR (0.840, 0.810-0.869), PLR (0.678, 0.641-0.715), LMR (0.837, 0.811-0.863), and PNI (0.740, 0.706-0.773) had significant predictive value for GBM compared with healthy controls and other disease groups. As compared with the Grade I-III glioma patients, the GBM patients had an AUC of 0.811 (95% CI 0.778-0.844) for NLR, 0.797 (0.763-0.832) for dNLR, 0.662 (0.622-0.702) for PLR, 0.743 (0.707-0.779) for LMR, and 0.661(0.622-0.701) for PNI. For the paired combinations, NLR+LMR demonstrated the highest accuracy. CONCLUSIONS The NLR+LMR combination was revealed as a noninvasive biomarker with relatively high sensitivity and specificity for glioma diagnosis, the differential d...

Although increasing evidence indicated that the deregulation of microRNAs (miRNAs) contributes to tumorigenesis and invasion, little is known about the role of miR-637 in human gliomas. In the present study, we found that the expression level of miR-637 was significantly reduced in clinical glioma tissues compared with normal brain tissues. Moreover, we revealed that the introduction of miR-637 dramatically suppressed glioma cell growth, migration and invasion in vitro and in vivo. Further studies revealed that Akt1 is a direct target gene of miR-637. Silencing of Akt1 inhibited the growth and invasion of glioma cells by decreasing phosphorylated Akt, β-catenin, phosphorylated Foxo1 and Cyclin D1 and inducing the expression of Foxo1, which was consistent with the effect of miR-637 overexpression. Suppressed expression of miR-637 and increased Akt1 protein levels were correlated with unfavorable progression and poor prognosis, respectively, and a negative relationship between the miR-637 expression and Akt1 protein levels was observed in gliomas. Our findings provide new insights into the role of miR-637 in the development of gliomas, and implicate the potential application of miR-637 in cancer therapy.

Gliomas are the most common form of malignant primary brain tumors with poor 5-year survival rate. Dysregulation of procollagen-lysine, 2-oxoglutarate 5-dioxygenase 2 (PLOD2) was observed in gliomas, but the specific role and molecular mechanism of PLOD2 in glioma have not been reported yet. In this study, PLOD2 was found to be frequently up-regulated in glioma and could serve as an independent prognostic marker to identify patients with poor clinical outcome. Knockdown of PLOD2 inhibited proliferation, migration and invasion of glioma cells in vitro and in vivo. Mechanistically, inhibition of PLOD2 inactivated PI3K/AKT signaling pathway and thus regulated the expression of its downstream epithelial–mesenchymal transition (EMT)-associated regulators, including E-cadherin, vimentin, N-cadherin, β-catenin, snail and slug in glioma cells. Moreover, PLOD2 could be induced by hypoxia-inducible factor-1α (HIF-1α) via hypoxia, thereby promoting hypoxia-induced EMT in glioma cells. Our data suggests that PLOD2 may be a potential therapeutic target for patients with glioma.