Interleukin 37 inhibits the migration and invasion of Glioma cells

Glioma is a medical term that describes a tumor originating in the brain. Several risk factors could develop glioma such as occupational exposure, gene mutation and ionizing radiation. Therefore, we aim to determine the expression and biological function of interleukin 37 (IL-37) in gliomas with different pathological grades. We used 95 participants with different pathological grades of glioma as our data subjects. We used CCK-8 assay and transwell assay to explore the proliferation of U251 over-expressing IL-37 and migration and invasion of U251. We found that IL-37 expression in tumor tissues was significantly higher than in normal tissue. The reduced IL-37 expression in gliomas was significantly associated with a higher WHO grade and lower Karnofsky Performance Status score. IL-37 expression in glioma tissues showed a decline with the increase of the WHO glioma grade. Patients with low IL-37 expression showed a shorter median survival. Transwell assay indicated that migration and invasion of U251 over-expressing IL-37 was significantly lower than that of the control at 24 h. Our findings showed that low IL-37 expression was negatively correlated with pathological grade and was positively correlated with survival time.