LAP3 promotes glioma progression by regulating proliferation, migration and invasion of glioma cells

Leucine aminopeptidase 3 (LAP3), belonging to the M1 family, has been proved to catalyze the hydrolysis of leucine residues. Leucine aminopeptidases are involved in many pathological disorders and regulate cell proliferation, invasion and/or angiogenesis of tumor. Recent study showed that LAP3 is highly expressed in several malignant and affects tumor angiogenesis. We aimed at investigating the clinical significance of LAP3 expression in human gliomas and its biological function in glioma cells. RT-PCR, Western blot and immunohistochemistry analysis were used to detect the expression levels of LAP3 in 121 glioma tissues, high LAP3 expression was correlated with the grade of malignancy and poor prognosis of glioma patients. In vitro, after increasing of LAP3 by myc-LAP3 transfection and knockdown of LAP3 by siRNA transfection in glioma cells, cell viability, cell cycle, migration and invasion were determined with CCK8 assay, flow cytometry, wound healing and transwell invasion assays. The results indicated that increasing LAP3 could promte cell viability, cell cycle, migration and invasion, knockdown LAP3 could decrease cell viability, suppress cell proliferation, migration and invasion. Our findings uncover that LAP3 might be a new prognostic factor and be close correlation with glioma cell growth, magration, invasion.