miR-128-3p inhibits glioma cell proliferation and differentiation by targeting NPTX1 through IRS-1/PI3K/AKT signaling pathway.

It has been reported that glioma has a higher morbidity and mortality than other types of malignant brain tumor. While glioma has been extensively researched, the exact molecular mechanisms of its genesis and progression have remained to be fully elucidated. In order to explore a novel glioma-associated pathway which may represent a therapeutic target, 61 pairs of tumor tissues and adjacent normal tissues of glioma patients were collected and subjected to reverse-transcription quantitative polymerase chain reaction analysis, indicating that the relative expression of microRNA (miR)-128-3p was significantly decreased in the tumor tissues. However, the expression of neuronal pentraxin 1 (NPTX1) was obviously elevated. Through a bioinformatics analysis using Targetscan and transfection experiments, it was confirmed that NPTX1 was targeted by miR-128-3p. In the U251 human glioma cell line, transfection with miR-128-3p mimics increased the levels of phosphorylated insulin receptor substrate 1 (p-IRS-1), phosphoinositide-3 kinase (PI3K) and p-AKT, as demonstrated by western blot analysis. In addition, the proliferation rate of the cells was notably decreased following transfection with miR-128-3p mimics. Conversely, transfection with miR-128-3p inhibitor significantly increased the levels of p-IRS-1, PI3K and p-AKT, accompanied by an elevated proliferation rate of the cells. Therefore, it was indicated that miR-128-3p could reversely regulate NPTX1 expression. After the expression of NPTX1 was inhibited with specific small interfering RNA, the levels of p-IRS-1, PI3K and p-AKT were obviously decreased, while the expression of miR-128-3p was not significantly changed. Overall, it was concluded that miR-128-3p suppresses glioma through the NPTX1/IRS-1/PI3K/AKT signaling pathway.