Reversal of Adriamycin Resistance of Hepatocellular Carcinoma by Targeting with Recombined Adenovirus Caning Antisense mdr1 RNA

OBJECTIVE Chemotherapy is an important therapy for hepatocellular carcinoma （HCC）. However, it is not effective in many cases due to recurrence and metastasis even if the initial treatment produces a response. Multidrug resistance （MDR） is considered to be one of the considerable causes. The aim of this study was to reverse MDR of HepG2/ADM cells by blocking mdr1 with an adenovirus vector carrying antisense mdr1 in a tumor transplantated in athymic mice. METHODS PCMV IE was removed from the pshuttle vector. A 0.3 kb AFP promoter was inserted into the pshuttle vector and pCMV changed into pAFP. The pAFP and asmdr1 PCR products were doubly digested with Kpnl and Apal, the digested products were ligated by T4 ligase, the asmdr1 gene was inserted into pAFP and a newly plasmid pAFP-asmdr1 was constructed. Following digestion with PI-SceI/I-Ceu I, pAFP-asmdr1 was ligated with Adeno-X genome DNA and amplified in E.coli XL1-Blue. The HEK293 cells were transfected and virus collected. The HepG2 MDR cells （HepG2/ADM） were induced by graded resistance to ADM and were inoculated into athymic mice. After adeno-asmdr1 was injected, the expression of mdr1-mRNA and the volume of the transplantated tumor and its cells were observed. RESULTS Following injection with Adeno-asmdr1, the tumor volume in the ADM＋Adeno-asmdr1 group did not increase. However the tumor volume in the PBS plus ADM group did significantly increase （P〈0.05）. In the tumor xenograft cells, mdr1 mRNA in the xenografts was assessed by RT-PCR and was found to be reduced at 1 week and 4 weeks in the ADM＋asmdr1 group, but it was stable in the ADM group. It was only 20% in the ADM＋asmdr1 group compared to the ADM group at the 4th week （P〈0.05）. Evidence of apoptosis was observed in the tumor xenograft cells treated with Adeno-asmdr1, but there was rare or no apoptosis in the group treated with ADM and PBS. CONCLUSION Adenovirus carrying antisense mdr1 RNA can partially reverse the MDR of HepG2/ADM cells and inhibit tumor growth by down-regulating mdr1 mRNA resulting in tumor cell apoptosis.

Cloning of NHE-1 gene fragment from human lung cancer cells and construction of its antisense expression vector

Objective: To clone the partial sequence of N+/H+ exchanger-1 (NHE-1) gene of human lung cancer cells and insert it reversely into the multiclone site of pLXSN in order to construct an antisense expression vector for tumor gene therapy in vivo. Methods: With use of the upstream and downstream primers containing Barn H I and EcoR I in their5’ ends respectively, a partial sequence of the first exon of NHE-1 gene was cloned in a length of 454 bp from genomic DNA of human lung cancer cell A549 with PCR method. The product was then directionally and reversely insert into the multiclone site of pLXSN. Finally, the constructed recombinant was identified with agarose gel electrophoresis and DNA sequencing. Results: The cloned fragment was 461 bp in length and successfully ligated to pLXSN with the identification by agarose gel electrophoresis. DNA sequencing confirmed that the fragment cloned and inserted into the vector was identical with the targeted one. Conclusion: The targeted fragment is successfully cloned and reversely inserted into pLXSN in our experiment. The antisense expression vector of NHE-1, pNHE-1. was consfructed successfully.