Down-regulation of FR alpha Inhibits Proliferation and Promotes Apoptosis of Cervical Cancer Cells in Vitro

作者：Bai, Li-Xia; Ding, Ling; Jiang, Shi-Wen; Kang, Hui-Jie; Gao, Chen-Fei; Chen, Chen; Zhou, Qin; Wang, Jin-Tao^*

来源：Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention, 2014, 15(14): 5667-5672.

DOI：10.7314/APJCP.2014.15.14.5667

• Folate receptor alpha
• proliferation
• cell cycle
• apoptosis
• c-Fos
• c-Jun

Folate receptor alpha (FR alpha) mediates folate uptake by endocytosis, and while folate is essential to DNA methylation and synthesis and may have an important role in proliferating cells. FRa is known to be expressed in rapidly proliferating cells, including many cancer cell lines, but there has been no systematic assessment of expression in cervical cancer cell lines. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the effects of FRa on proliferation and apoptosis of cervical cells and correlation mechanism. In this study, we investigated the biological function of FRa in Hela cells using RNA interference. Cell proliferation was evaluated by Cell Counting Kit-8 (CCK8) assay, while cell cycling and apoptosis were assessed by flow cytometry, mRNA levels by real time-PCR and protein levels of FRa, c-Fos and c-Jun by Western blotting. The results revealed that FR alpha was highly expressed in Hela cells and its silencing with a small interfering RNA (siRNA) inhibited cell proliferation and induced cell apoptosis, arresting the cell cycle in G0/G1 stages while decreasing the proportion in S and G2/M stages, and suppressed the expression levels of c-Fos and c-Jun. In conclusion, the results of this study indicated that FRa down-regulation might be capable of suppressing cervical cancer cell proliferation and promoting apoptosis. It suggested that FRa might be a novel therapeutic target for cervical cancer.

• 出版日期2014
• 单位山西医科大学