Gene silencing of TKTL1 by RNAi inhibits cell proliferation in human hepatoma cells

Received 11 December 2006; accepted 15 January 2007.

Abstract

We detected a strong upregulation of the mutated transketolase transcript (TKTL1) in human hepatoma cell line HepG2, whereas transketolase (TKT) and transketolase-like-2 (TKTL2) transcripts were not upregulated. We inhibited the expression of TKTL1 by RNAi in HepG2 cells. It was found that total transketolase activity was dramatically downregulated and the proliferation of cancer cells was significantly inhibited in HepG2 cells. These results indicate that TKTL1 gene influences total transketolase activity and cell proliferation in human hepatoma cells, suggesting that TKTL1 gene plays an important role on glycometabolism in tumors and it might become a novel target for tumor gene therapy.

Keywords: Transketolase, Transketolase-like-1 (TKTL1), Small interfering RNA (siRNA), Tansketolase activity, HepG2 cell line

a Department of Otolaryngology, Union Hospital of Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science & Technology, Wuhan 430022, China

b Department of Laboratory, Union Hospital of Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science & Technology, Wuhan 430022, China

Corresponding author. Present address: 1277 Jiefang Dadao Avenue, Union Hospital, Wuhan, Hubei 430022, China. Tel.: +86 27 62743701; fax: +86 27 85776343.

1 The first two authors contributed equally to this work.

PII: S0304-3835(07)00017-1

doi:10.1016/j.canlet.2007.01.010

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