MiRNA-155 promotes proliferation by targeting caudal-type homeobox 1 (CDX1) in glioma cells

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) play important roles in the tumorigenesis of glioma. Recent studies showed that miR-155 expression was increased in types of cancer, including glioma. However, the underlying mechanism of miR-155 on glioma is still unclear. In the present study, expression of miR-155 and caudal-type homeobox 1 (CDX1) was determined in glioma tissues by qRT-PCR, and the regulatory axis was further studied in glioma cells. We showed that miR-155 expression was significantly increased in glioma tissues while CDX1 expression was decreased. Correlation analysis revealed that miR-155 was negatively correlated with CDX1 expression in glioma tissues. Moreover, Kaplan–Meier analysis indicated that patients with high miR-155 expression had a poor overall survival. In addition, our results showed that the translation of CDX1 expression could be suppressed by miR-155 mimics. And miR-155 mimics promoted glioma cell proliferation could be reversed by CDX1 overexpression. In vivo assay, we showed that miR-155 overexpression promoted the progress of tumor formation. Therefore, we suggested that miR-155 might promote glioma cell growth partially by targeting CDX1, which provided a novel therapeutic strategy for glioma patients.