Effect of down-regulating expression of nucleolin on the growth of cervical squamous carcinoma cell

Objective To investigate the effect of down-regulating expression of nucleolin (C23) on the growth of cervical squamous cell carcinoma. Methods The expression status of nucleolin in cervical squamous cell carcinoma was marked by immunohistochemical method, via a technique called RNA interference to transfect siRNA plasmid of C23 into cervical squamous cell carcinoma, down-regulated the expression; cell proliferation was measured by MTS and cell invasive ability was evaluated by transwell. Results C23 expressed in nucleolus, cytolymph and cytomembrane of cervical squamous cell carcinoma.MTS experiments showed that cancer cell growing speed was reduced, and the difference between the control group and the blank group was statistically significant (P<0.01). Flow cytometry assay showed that RNA interference induced apoptotic ratio of cancer cell increased, especially obvious in the early apoptosis; transwell detection showed that, the number of membrane spanning cancer cell in siRNA interference group was (277.00±59.30), which was significantly less than that in the control group (417.17±43.60) and the blank group (443.17±37.19), and the difference was statistically significance (P<0.01). Conclusion Down-regulating expression of C23 in cervical squamous cell carcinoma could inhibit the growth of cells, induce apoptosis as well as reduce the invasive ability of cancer cells. Key words: Nucleolin; Cervical; Squamous cell carcinoma; RNA interference