Antisense Therapy Targeting Pokemon Oncogene in MCF-7 Cells

Abstract

This study is undertaken to investigate the role of Pokemon oncogene in MCF-7 cells growth and the potential of Pokemon as a target for cancer therapy. An 18-mer antisense oligonucleotide As4 (TTCAGGTCGTAGTTGTGG, targeting 1496–1513 site of Pokemon mRNA) has been proven as a potent inhibitor of Pokemon expression in our previous work. In this study, we transfected As4 to MCF-7 cells and confirmed the Pokemon mRNA and protein level by RT–PCR and western blot. Furthermore, the cell cycle has been analyzed by flow cytometer. G₂/M arrest has been observed when the cells were treated with antisense oligonucleotide at 100 nM for 48 h. We've also found the P53 protein upregulation due to Pokemon inhibition. These results suggest that Pokemon inhibitor may be a novel approach to human cancer therapy.

Keywords:

• Antisense oligonucleotides
• cancer therapy
• cell cycle
• Pokemon
• p53

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the financial supports from the Chinese National Natural Science Foundation (20572060, 20472043), the Project of Science and Technology of Guangdong Province (2005A11601008), and Mega-Project of Science Research of Ministry of Science and Technology of China (2005CCA03400).