RNA interference by expression of short hairpin RNAs suppressesbcl-xL gene expression in nasopharyngeal carcinoma cells.

To evaluate a new plasmid mediated RNA interference (RNAi) system and investigate whether knock-down ofbcl-xL by short hairpin RNA (shRNA) can induce apoptosis of human nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) cell line CNE-2Zin vitro.The plasmid containing mU6 promoter was subcloned to yield the pmU6 plasmid, recombinant plasmid expressing shRNA targetingbcl-xL gene was designed and constructed, and were co-transfected cells with green fluorescence protein expressing plasmid. Flow cytometry was used to evaluate transfection efficiency, and RT-PCR and Western blot were applied to analyzebcl-xL mRNA and protein levels, respectively.The shRNA expressed by the recombinant plasmid efficiently suppressedbcl-xL gene expression and induced apoptosis of NPC cellsin vitro.The recombinant plasmid can sufficiently mediate RNAi in CNE-2Z cells, and knock-down of thebcl-xL expression by shRNA significantly induced apoptosis in CNE-2Z cells. The results suggest this new system, mediated RNAi can be used as a tool for the study of gene function and gene therapy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]