MicroRNA-378 enhances inhibitory effect of curcumin on glioblastoma

// Wende Li 1, 2,4 , Weining Yang 3 , Yujiao Liu 2 , Siyu Chen 4 , Shanmin Chin 2 , Xiaolong Qi 2 , Yingchao Zhao 5 , Hao Liu 2 , Jiasheng Wang 1 , Xueting Mei 1 , Peigen Huang 2 and Donghui Xu 1 1 Laboratory of Traditional Chinese Medicine and Marine Drugs, School of Life Sciences, Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou 510275, China 2 Edwin L. Steele Laboratory, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02114, USA 3 Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre and Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathobiology, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada 4 Guangdong Laboratory Animals Monitoring Institute, Guangdong Key Laboratory of Laboratory Animals, Guangzhou 510663, China 5 Cancer center, Union Hospital, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430022, China Correspondence to: Donghui Xu, email: donghuixu007@163.com Keywords: miR-378, glioblastoma, U87, curcumin Received: December 29, 2016     Accepted: March 30, 2017    Published: May 16, 2017 ABSTRACT Glioblastoma multiforme is the most aggressive and common primary brain tumor, and is virtually incurable due to its therapeutic resistance to radiation and chemotherapy. Curcumin is a well-known phytochemical exhibiting antitumor activity on many human cancers including glioblastoma multiforme. Given the unique miRNA expression profiles in cancer cells compared to non-cancerous cells, we investigated whether these miRNA could be used to cancer therapy. In this report we show that miR-378, a glioblastoma multiforme down regulated miRNA, may enhance the inhibitory effect of curcumin on this cancer growth. Our results indicated that the inhibitory effect of curcumin was enhanced in miR-378-expressing stable U87 cells in vitro and in vivo, compared to control cells. MiR-378 was found to target p-p38 expression, underlying the observed phenotypic changes. Thus, we concluded that miR-378 enhances the response of glioblastoma multiforme to curcumin treatment, by targeting p38.