Efficacy of lentiviral-mediated transfection of hTSHR in poorly differentiated thyroid carcinoma cell line

Abstract

Dedifferentiated thyroid cancer is often incurable because it does not respond to radioiodine. This study aimed to investigate iodide uptake and the expressions of thyroid-specific molecules after the transfection of human thyrotropin receptor (hTSHR) gene in poorly differentiated follicular thyroid cancer cell line (FTC-133). pGC-FU-hTSHR-GFP-lentivirus and pGC-FU-GFP-lentivirus were added into FTC-133 cells respectively. The parental cells were defined as the blank group. Cells transduced with pGC-FU-GFP and pGC-FU-hTSHR-GFP were defined as the control group and experimental group respectively. The efficiency of transfection was observed under a fluorescence microscope. (125)I uptake by FTC-133 was analyzed by measuring the radioactivity. Real time-PCR, western blotting and radioimmunoassay were applied to detect the expressions of mRNAs and proteins of Na(+)/I(-) symporter (NIS), thyroid-stimulating hormone receptor (TSHR), thyroid peroxidase (TPO) and thyroglobulin (Tg) in FTC-133. The green fluorescence was present in 80% of the transduced cells under fluorescence microscope. The iodine uptake of cells transduced with pGC-FU-TSHR-GFP was 3.3 times higher than that in the other two groups (P<0.01). NIS, TSHR, TPO and Tg had been significantly up-regulated in the experimental group as compared to the control group (P<0.01) and the blank group (P<0.01). The hTSHR transfection in FTC-133 improved the expression of thyroid-specific molecules including TSHR, NIS, TPO and Tg and radioiodide uptake.