Inhibitory effect of lentivirus transduced anti-telomerase siRNA therapy on hepatocellular carcinoma in nude mice

Abstract

To study the efficacy of anti-telomerase siRNA in hepatocellular carcinoma both in vitro and in vivo. Lentvirus vectors contained anti-telomerase siRNA were conducted with a high performance homologous recombination system, and then were transduced into human hepatocellular carcinoma HepG2 cells. The telomerase activity was detected by RT-PCR, HepG2 cell proliferation was determined by MTT assay, and apoptosis was detected by TUNEL assay. The in vivo experiment was carried out by inoculation of HepG2 cells into nude mice and the tumor growth was measured and analyzed. The growth of transfected HepG2 cells was significantly inhibited and the inhibition rate was 57.5% at the 8th day after transfection. The telomerase activity was significantly suppressed in vitro. The growth of transfected human hepatocellular HepG2 tumor in the nude mice was also significantly inhibited. The results of this study demonstrate that the growth of hepatocellular carcinoma cells is effectively inhibited by transfection of anti-telomerase siRNA both in vitro and in vivo.