Authors: Ni Sima Wei Wang Debo Kong Dongrui Deng Qian Xu Jianfeng Zhou Gang Xu Li Meng Yunping Lu Shixuan Wang Ding Ma
Publish Date: 2007/12/01
Volume: 13, Issue: 2, Pages: 273-281
Abstract
The simultaneous expression of human papillomavirus type 16 HPV16 E6 and E7 oncogenes is pivotal for malignant transformation and maintenance of malignant phenotypes Silencing these oncogenes is considered to be applicable in molecular therapies of human cervical cancer However it remains to be determined whether HPV16 E6 and E7 could be both silenced to obtain most efficient antitumor activity by using RNA interference RNAi technology Herein we designed a small interfering RNA siRNA targeting HPV16E7 region to degrade either E6 or truncated E6 E6 and E7 mRNAs and to simultaneously knockdown both E6 and E7 expression Firstly the sequence targeting HPV16E7 region was inserted into the shRNA packing vector pSIRENDNR yielding pSIREN16E7 to stably express corresponding shRNA HPV16transformed SiHa and CaSki cells were used as a model system RTPCR Western Blotting MTT assay TUNEL staining Annexin V apoptosis assay and flow cytometry were applied to examine the effects of pSIREN16E7 Our results indicated that HPV16E7 specific shRNA 16E7shRNA induced selective degradation of E6 and E7 mRNAs and proteins E6 silencing induced accumulation of cellular p53 and p21 In contrast E7 silencing induced hypophosphorylation of retinoblastoma Rb protein The loss of E6 and E7 reduced cell growth and ultimately resulted in massive apoptotic cell death selectively in HPVpositive cancer cells compared with the HPVnegative ones We demonstrated that 16E7shRNA can induce simultaneous E6 and E7 suppression and lead to striking apoptosis in HPV16related cancer cells by activating cellular p53 p21 and Rb Therefore RNAi using E7 shRNA may have the genespecific therapy potential for HPV16related cancers
Keywords: