Targeting SIM2-s decreases glioma cell invasion through mesenchymal--epithelial transition.

Glioma is a common primary intracranial carcinoma with high incidence, recurrence, and motility. Single minded homolog 2-short form (SIM2-s), a member of basic helix-loop-helix (bHLH) family, is reported to be expressed in glioma and might play a role in the invasion. In the present study, we investigated the importance of SIM2-s in glioma invasion and further explored the potential mechanisms. We showed that targeting SIM2-s by interference technology could decrease cell adhesion to fibronectin, induce cell aggregation and cytoskeletal changes. Furthermore, we showed that targeting SIM2-s increased the expression of epithelial markers and decreased the expression of mesenchymal markers, that is mesenchymal–epithelial transition (MET). Targeting SIM2-s decreased self-renewal of glioma stem cells by tumor sphere formation assay. Taken together, our results indicated that MET is involved in the inhibition of glioma invasion by targeting SIM2-s, and SIM2-s may be a new gene target. J. Cell. Biochem. 115: 1900–1907, 2014. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.