Downregulation of miR-221/222 sensitizes glioma cells to temozolomide by regulating apoptosis independently of p53 status.

A previous study showed that miR-221/222 can regulate cell apoptosis. p53 is a well known tumor suppressor which can influence the chemosensitivity of glioma cells. However, the effect of miR-221/222 in gliomas with different p53 status is unknown. Here, we demostrate that knockdown of miR-221/222 increases apoptosis in human gliomas of different p53 types (U251 cells, p53 mutant-type; LN308 cells, p53 null-type; and U87 cells, p53 wild-type). Furthermore, the effect of miR-221/22 caused no change of p53 expression in the glioma cells studied. In addition, when a specific siRNA against p53 was employed in U87 cells, no attenuation of apoptosis was found after knockdown of miR-221/222. Importantly, we found that As-miR-221/222-treated cells increased expression of Bax, cytochrome c, Apaf-1 and cleaved-caspase-3. Our results showed that low expression of miR-221/222 sensitized glioma cells to temozolomide (TMZ); in addition, ectopic expression of PUMA by pcDNA-PUMA had a similar effect. Taken together, our study indicates that downregulated miR-221/222 can sensitize glioma cells to TMZ by regulating apoptosis independently of p53 status.