Expression of RhoA and COX-2 and their roles in the occurrence and progression of brain glioma

Abstract

This study was conducted to detect the expression of RhoA and COX-2 in the brain glioma and to discuss their roles in the occurrence and progression of brain glioma. Brain glioma tissues were collected from 22 cases with brain glioma by surgical resection (tumor group); normal brain tissues were collected from 15 cases with brain trauma by surgical resection (healthy group). Western Blot and immunohistochemistry were applied to detect the expression of RhoA and COX-2 in the tissues. The brain glioma cell lines with silenced RhoA expression or silenced COX-2 expression were used to analyze the roles of RhoA and COX-2 in the occurrence and progression of brain glioma through the cell proliferation and invasion/migration assays. The relative expression of RhoA and COX-2 in the brain glioma was 0.82+0.13 and 0.75+0.14, respectively, which was significantly higher than that in the normal brain tissues (0.12+0.08 and 0.043+0.14) (P<0.05). The percentage of RhoA-positive brain glioma cells and COX-2-positive cells was 75.32+15.02% and 82.39+17.82%, respectively; it was significantly higher than that of the normal brain tissues (17.03+7.72 and 5.83+4.01) (P<0.05). As compared with glioma cell line SHG-44, the relative proliferation rate of C8- D9 and E5-B9 was 20.72% and 25.45%, respectively; the relative invasion/migration rate was 20.91% and 20.97%, respectively. The G0/G1 phase decreased significantly (P<0.05) and significantly increased in stage S and G2/M (P<0.05). Both RhoA and COX-2 were upregulated in the brain glioma tissues; their over-expression contributed to the proliferation and invasion/migration of the brain glioma cells.