MicroRNA-19a promotes glioma cell growth by repressing LRIG1.

Growing evidence indicates that deregulation of miRNAs contributes to the development of glioma. In present study, we found that the level of miRNA-19a was significantly elevated in glioma tissues and cell lines. Moreover, down-regulation of miRNA-19a dramatically repressed glioma cell growth in vitro and in vivo. Meanwhile, the expression of LRIG1, a tumor suppressor in glioma, was increased following miRNA-19a knockdown. Furthermore, luciferase reporter assay confirmed that LRIG1 was a direct target of miRNA-19a. In addition, silencing of LRIG1 could reverse the suppressive effect of miRNA-19a inhibitor. Taken together, our results demonstrated that down-regulation of miRNA-19a could suppress the growth of glioma cells, at least in part, through up-regulating LRIG1.