The peptide ENSG00000232259-ORF inhibits glioma cell proliferation and migration by promoting autophagy

Glioma is a malignant brain tumor in which the lncRNA ENSG00000232259 is significantly upregulated. Bioinformatics predictions suggest that it may encode the polypeptide ENSG00000232259-ORF, but the biological function and mechanisms of this polypeptide in glioma remain unclear. Gene expression and correlation analyses were conducted using the GEPIA database, combined with GetORF to predict the polypeptide-coding potential, and Western blot was employed to validate the expression of ENSG00000232259-ORF. Functional experiments demonstrated that this polypeptide significantly inhibits glioma cell proliferation and migration, as evidenced by CCK8, colony formation, Transwell, and scratch assays, and this effect is independent of its parent lncRNA. Mechanistically, ENSG00000232259-ORF promotes autophagy by upregulating ATG3 expression, manifested by increased levels of LC3B and decreased P62. Knockdown of ATG3 reversed the inhibitory effects of the polypeptide on cell proliferation and migration. These findings reveal that ENSG00000232259-ORF suppresses glioma progression by activating the autophagy pathway, providing a potential new target for tumor therapy.