title: [Effect of miR-221 on the viability and apoptosis of hepatocellular carcinoma HepG2 cells].
abstract: To investigate the effect of microRNA-221 (miR-221) on cell viability and apoptosis of hepatocellular carcinoma HepG2 cells. MiR-221 inhibitors and mimics were transfected into HepG2 cells. The expression of miR-221 was detected by real time quantitative RT-PCR. CellTiter-blue cell viability kit, Hoechst 33342/propidium iodide (PI) double staining assay, flow cytometry and Apo-ONE homogeneous caspase-3/7 kit were used to measure cell viability and apoptosis. MiR-221 inhibitors significantly inhibited the cell growth and miR-221 mimics increased cell viability 48 hours post-transfection measured by both CellTiter-blue cell viability kit and Hoechst 33342/PI assay (P is less than to 0.05). There was a positive correlation between these two assays (r = 0.993, P is less than to 0.01). With miR-221 mimics, the number of G1 stage cells (47.67%+/-1.53%) was significantly reduced as compared to the blank control (59.00%+/-1.00%) and the negative control (58.00%+/-1.00%, F = 81.77, P is less than to 0.01), and it was significantly raised in S stage (20.33%+/-1.15%) than in blank control (11.00%+/-1.00%) and negative control (12.00%+/-1.00%, F = 70.9, P is less than to 0.01) with flow cytometry analysis. More cell apoptosis and necrosis were significantly induced by miR-221 inhibitors 48 hours post-transfection detected by both Hoechst 33342/PI assay and flow cytometry PE Annexin V kit (P is less than to 0.05). The result from Apo-ONE homogeneous caspase-3/7 kit was consistent with the above two apoptotic assays, which showed that with miR-221 inhibitors, the activity of caspase-3/7 was significantly enhanced (P is less than to 0.05). MiR-221 contributes to the growth of hepatocellular carcinoma cells and miR-221 inhibition can induce cell apoptosis. miR-221 has the potential to become one of the new molecular targets for liver cancer therapy.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pathology, the First Affiliated Hospital of Guangxi Medical University, Nanning 530021, China.
authors.forename: Gang
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: Yi-Wu
authors.initials: YW
authors.lastname: Dang
authors.forename: Dian-Zhong
authors.initials: DZ
authors.lastname: Luo
mesh_terms: D017209:Apoptosis / Q000187:drug effects; D006528:Carcinoma, Hepatocellular; D049109:Cell Proliferation / Q000187:drug effects; D056945:Hep G2 Cells; D006801:Humans; D008113:Liver Neoplasms; D035683:MicroRNAs / Q000378:metabolism
chemical_list: D035683:MicroRNAs