siRNA suppression of hTERT using activatable cell-penetrating peptides in hepatoma cells.

siRNA suppression of hTERT using activatable cell-penetrating peptides in hepatoma cells.
Biosci Rep. 2015 Feb 11;
Authors: Li H, He J, Yi H, Xiang G, Chen K, Fu B, Yang Y, Chen G
Abstract
Activatable cell-penetrating peptides (aCPPs) allow nonviral, low cytotoxic, and selective delivery of compounds into target cells for cancer therapy. In tumor cells, up-regulation of human telomerase reverse transcriptase (hTERT) frequently occurs and is being considered as a target in cancer diagnosis and treatment. siRNA sequence that target hTERT mRNA can silence the gene and reduce hTERT protein expression to reduce cell proliferation and inhibit cell growth. In our study, we tested a matrix metalloproteinase-2 (MPP2) activatable cell-penetrating peptide (CPP) in delivering hTERT siRNA into SMMC-7721 hepatoma cells to silence the hTERT gene. Cultured SMMC-7721 cells were transfected with a complex of aCPPs and hTERT-specific siRNA-encoding or control plasmids. Compared to cells treated with the complex of control plasmid/CPPs, cells treated with the hTERT-specific siRNA-encoding plasmid/CPP complex had a prolonged G1 phase, but a shorter G2/S phase, indicating a G1 arrest. Treatment with the hTERT-specific siRNA resulted in a significant decrease (by 26%, P <0.05) in hTERT mRNA levels. The aCPPs tested in this study provides a nonviral delivery of siRNA into cancer cells to silence target genes in cancer therapy.
PMID: 25671640 [Pub...

Source: Bioscience Reports - February 11, 2015 Category: Biomedical Science Authors: Li H, He J, Yi H, Xiang G, Chen K, Fu B, Yang Y, Chen G Tags: Biosci Rep Source Type: research