Upregulation of tumor suppressor WWOX promotes immune response in glioma

•We transduced WWOX into human glioma cell line U251, and cocultured with Jurkat T cells together.•Upregulation of WWOX could increase proliferation of Jurkat T cells.•Upregulation of WWOX could decrease the FasL and TGF-β expression of U251 cells.•Loss of WWOX expression resulted in glioma carcinogenesis and suppressed immune cell attack.

Previous studies demonstrate that human glioma cells could evade the host’s immune surveillance system, result in aggressive proliferation. WWOX, a tumor suppressor gene affected in multiple cancers, induces tumor apoptosis and suppresses growth in vitro and in vivo. However, the effect of WWOX expression in glioma cells to immune cells is still unknown. In the present study, we transduced WWOX into human glioma cell line U251, and cocultured with Jurkat T cells together. We demonstrated that upregulation of WWOX could increase proliferation of Jurkat T cells and decrease the FasL and TGF-β expression of U251 cells, result in inhibiting apoptosis of Jurkat T cells. Therefore, our results suggested that loss of WWOX expression not only resulted in glioma carcinogenesis, but also suppressed immune cell attack by inducing Fas/FasL mediated apoptotic signaling.