Brain lipid binding protein mediates the proliferation of human glioblastoma cells by regulating ERK1/2 signaling pathway in vitro.

Brain lipid binding protein (BLBP) is highly expressed in the radial glial cells (RGCs) of the central nervous system (CNS), in glioblastomas, and, in vitro, in U251 cells. In this report, we have demonstrated that increased BLBP expression in glioblastoma is associated with poor survival and used a double-vector CRISPR/Cas9 lentiviral system to deplete endogenous BLBP from U251 cells, we found that loss of BLBP induced cell growth inhibition and S-phase arrest. Moreover, an increase in P53 and a decrease in p-ERK1/2 were observed after BLBP depletion, suggesting a potential mechanism by which loss of BLBP results in growth inhibition.