Suppression of CDK2 expression by siRNA induces cell cycle arrest and cell proliferation inhibition in human cancer cells

Cyclin-dependent kinase 2 (CDK2) is a member of serine/ threonine protein kinases, which initiates the principal tran- sitions of the eukaryotic cell cycle and is a promising target for cancer therapy. The present study was designed to inhibit cdk2 gene expression to induce cell cycle arrest and cell pro- liferation suppression. Here, we constructed a series of RNA interference (RNAi) plasmids which can successfully express small interference RNA (siRNA) in the transfected human cells. The results showed that the RNAi plasmids containing the cod- ing sequences for siRNAs down-regulated the cdk2 gene ex- pression in human cancer cells at the mRNA and the protein levels. Furthermore, we found that the cell cycle was arrested at G0G1 phases and the cell proliferation was inhibited by dif- ferent siRNAs. These results demonstrate that suppression of CDK2 activity by RNAi may be an effective strategy for gene therapy in human cancers. (BMB reports 2010; 43(4): 291-296)