Overexpression of microRNA-939-5p Contributes to Cell Proliferation and Associates Poor Prognosis in Glioma

Glioma is the main brain tumor worldwide and has a worse prognosis. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are proved to involve in massive malignant tumors including glioma. In this study, we tried to detect the microRNA-939-5p (miR-939-5p) expression pattern and explore its prognostic significance in glioma. We performed the quantitative real-time PCR to examine the relative expression of miR-939-5p in glioma. The Kaplan–Meier method and Cox regression analysis were used to reveal the prognostic importance of miR-939-5p. The influence of miR-939-5p on cell proliferation, migration, and invasion was investigated by the Cell Counting kit-8 (CCK-8), colony formation assay, and Transwell assay. Besides, the target gene of miR-939-5p was provided by luciferase reporter assay. Our data substantiated the expression of miR-939-5p was obviously increased in glioma tissues and cell lines. The upregulation of miR-939-5p predicted a poor survival rate and might act as an alternative prognostic indicator in glioma. The elevated expression of miR-939-5p boosted proliferation, migration, and invasion in glioma cell lines. The alternation of miR-939-5p changed the protein expression of TIMP metallopeptidase inhibitor 2 (TIMP2). These findings indicated the overexpression of miR-939-5p was associated with the poor prognosis of glioma patients. MiR-939-5p may function as an oncogene by targeting TIMP2.