Survivin deficiency leads to imparalization of cytokinesis in cancer cells.

BACKGROUND: Survivin has been implicated in cancer progression and is known to be over-expressed in a variety of human malignancies. Positive regulation of survivin expression provides a connecting link between cell cycle and tumorigenesis or perhaps tumour maintenance.
METHODS: An experiment was designed to analyse survivin expression in cell lines (MCF 7, Zr751, A549, HepG2) using SDS-PAGE, Western blots, RT-PCR, AGE and heamatoxylin-eosin staining were done.
RESULTS: SDS-PAGE revealed the presence of 16.5 kDa protein. Subsequent western Blot and cytological analysis showed down-regulation of survivin expression in cancer cells.
CONCLUSION: Therefore, the study allows the conclusion that survivin is essential for proper chromosome segregation and cytokinesis. It seems reasonable to suspect that abnormal expression or function of survivin might contribute to multinucleated and apoptotic conditions.