Introduction

Glioma is the most common primary brain tumour in adults. Numerous studies have shown that neuregulins (NRGs) may be involved in the formation of glioma. Although NRG1 has been extensively studied in glioma, the functions of NRG2 in glioma development remain elusive.

Material and methods

In the present study, we investigated the expression of NRG2 in different grades of human glioma samples, and analysed the functional effects of NRG2 in glioma cells mainly using wound healing assay and transmigration assay.

Results

We found that NRG2 was differentially expressed in different grades of human glioma/glioblastoma tissues. The data from wound healing assays demonstrated that NRG2 can differentially promote the migration of SHG44 human glioma, and U251 and U-87 MG human glioblastoma cells at different time points. The results of cell transmigration assays showed that, compared with the vehicle control, the number of cells that migrated to the underside of the insert was increased significantly for all the 3 cell lines treated with 5 nM of NRG2 for 12 hours.

Conclusions

In conclusion, our results demonstrated that NRG2 is expressed in gliomas to varying extents, and it may play roles in the migration of glioma cells in vitro. These data suggest that treatment targeting NRG2 signalling may partly reverse the migration-based metastasis of glioma cells.