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Current Gene Therapy

Editor-in-Chief

ISSN (Print): 1566-5232
ISSN (Online): 1875-5631

Impact of PLK-1 Silencing on Endothelial Cells and Cancer Cells of Diverse Histological Origin

Author(s): Carla P. Gomes, Ligia C. Gomes-da-Silva, Jose S. Ramalho, Maria C.P. de Lima, Sergio Simoes and Joao N. Moreira

Volume 13, Issue 3, 2013

Page: [189 - 201] Pages: 13

DOI: 10.2174/1566523211313030004

Price: $65

Abstract

The main goal of this work was to assess in vitro the potential of Polo-like kinase gene (PLK-1) as a molecular target within the tumor microenvironment, namely in both cancer cells of tumors of different histological origin and endothelial cells from angiogenic blood vessels, upon silencing with anti-PLK-1 siRNA. In addition, the effect of Plk-1 downregulation on the cancer cells chemosensitization to paclitaxel was further assessed.

Downregulation of Plk-1 reduced cancer cells viability from 40 to 85% and up to 59% in endothelial cells. Regarding the latter, it compromised their ability to form new tube-like structures, decreasing the formation of network projections up to 46%. This suggested for the first time, PLK-1 as a valuable angiogenic molecular target. In combination with paclitaxel, anti-PLK-1 siRNA chemosensitized non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and prostate carcinoma cell lines, leading up to a 2-fold increase in the drug cytotoxic effect. Moreover, the sequential incubation of anti-PLK-1 siRNA and paclitaxel led to a decrease in the IC50 of the latter up to 2.7- and 4.1-fold, in A-549 and PC-3 cells, respectively. The combination of anti-PLK-1 siRNA with paclitaxel led to cell cycle arrest, increasing the number of cells at the G2/M and S phases to 1.5 and 1.3-fold in PC-3 cells, and to 1.6 and 1.4-fold in A-549 cells, respectively. Overall, it has been demonstrated that PLK-1 silencing with siRNA can impact multiple cellular players of tumor aggressiveness, thus enabling the opportunity to interfere with different hallmarks of cancer, in tumors with diverse histological origin.

Keywords: Angiogenesis, cancer, drug combination, paclitaxel, PLK-1, siRNA, tumor microenvironment.


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