[Effect of plasmid transfected shMRE11 on the drug-resistance of BEL7402/5-FU hepatoma cells].

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the impact of silencing meiotic recombination 11 (MRE11) gene by shMRE11 on the chemotherapeutic drug sensitivity and the resistance-associated protein (MRP1) expression on the drug-resistant BEL7402/5-FU hepatoma cells, and to confirm the relationship between MRE11 and drug-resistance of hepatoma cells. METHODS: shMRE11 was transiently transfected into BEL7402/5-FU cells via cathodolyte liposome transfection method. The silencing efficiency was evaluated by quantitative real-time PCR (qRT-PCR) and Western blotting. MTT assay was used to detect the sensitivity of transfected BEL7402/5-FU to cisplatin (DDP), mitomycin C (MMC), adriamycin (ADM) and 5-FU. qRT-PCR and Western blotting were employed respectively to detect the change in the mRNA and protein levels of drug-resistance protein MRP1 in transfected BEL7402/5-FU. RESULTS: The qRT-PCR and Western blotting showed that the silencing efficiency of MRE11 mRNA and protein was 78.0% and 56.1%, respectively. Compared with the control group, IC50; of shMRE11 group treated with DDP, MMC, ADM, 5-FU was reduced significantly as shown by MTT assay (P<0.05); qRT-PCR and Western blot analysis of MRP1 showed that its expression significantly decreased at the mRNA and protein levels (P<0.05). CONCLUSION: shMRE11 can effectively improve the sensitivity of BEL7402/5-FU cells to anticancer drugs and down-regulate the expression of multidrug resistance associated protein MRP1.