Analyse Of Function Of UTRN Gene In The Tumor Progress By RNAi

After those preliminary studies, we found that Utrophin (UTRN) maybe is a candidate tumor suppressor gene. The past studies suggested that the decreased UTRN expression occurred in various tumor tissues such as thyroid cancer, lung cancer, breast cancer, and renal cancer, and meanwhile deletion also occurred. For knowning cell biology function of UTRN, we used RNA interference technology to silence the gene expression of UTRN in the human embryonic kidney cells HEK-293, mapped cell proliferation curve and found that cell proliferation rate increased significantly after silencing. Compared with the control, the filopodia of cell surface was significantly increased. These characteristics hinted the human embryonic kidney HEK 293 cells of UTRN silent expression presented the trend of malignant transformation, which confirmed UTRN being a candidate tumor suppressor gene.In addition, the past research has shown that UTRN protein appears in the cell membrane of muscle cells. For affirming the localization of UTRN protein in tumor cells, we analyzed the localization of UTRN protein in Human lung cancer cell lines AGZY-83a and Anip973 by the immunofluorescence techniques. The results show that UTRN protein was localized in the nuclei in the two lung cancer cell lines. However, in normal human embryonic kidney HEK 293 cells, UTRN protein was localized in the cell membrane. The results suggested that the nuclear translocation of UTRN protein existed in tumor cells. The occurring mechanism of UTRN protein translocation, the secondary function of UTRN translocated in tumor cells and the impact of the translocation in the tumor need to be further studied.