miR-423-5p inhibits the proliferation and metastasis of glioblastoma cells by targeting phospholipase C beta 1.

Glioma is a common brain tumor which is highly invasive, responds poorly to therapy, and has a poor prognosis. There is growing evidence that an abnormal expression of many genes is related to glioma and leads to glioma cell growth and metastasis. Phospholipase C beta 1 (PLCB1) plays critical roles in intracellular transduction and regulating signal activation, which are important to tumorigenesis. Therefore, it could bind to miRNA as a target gene. The purpose of our study was to confirm that PLCB1 plays a critical role in suppressing glioma progression. We found that the expression of miR-423-5p was reduced, but the expression of PLCB1 was increased, in glioma tissues and cells. To explore whether miR-423-5p affects PLCB1, a bioinformatics approach suggested that miR-423-5p can directly target PLCB1. Moreover, we observed, using luciferase reporter assays, that miR-423-5p could target PLCB1 3'-UTR. Functionally, the overexpression of miR-423-5p could attenuate the proliferation, invasion, and migration and promote the apoptosis of glioma cells. Furthermore, we found that miR-423-5p could enhance p-ERK expression in glioma cells. Taken together, we deduced that miR-423-5p inhibited proliferation and metastasis by targeting PLCB1, and it also promotes apoptosis in glioma cells. These results suggest that miR-423-5p directly targets PLCB1 3'-UTR and could inhibit cell invasion and migration through the ERK-dependent pathway in glioma, and the miR-423-5p/PLCB1 axis may be a potential target for new potential therapeutic strategies to treat glioma.