Lentivirus-mediated RNAi knockdown of NUPR1 inhibits human nonsmall cell lung cancer growth in vitro and in vivo.

NUPR1 (nuclear protein 1) was found to play a key role in the development of several malignancies including pancreas, breast, and prostate cancers. However, the functional role of NUPR1 in nonsmall cell lung cancer (NSCLC) progression and development is little known. Here, lentivirus-mediated small interfering RNA (siRNA) was employed to downregulate endogenous NUPR1 expression to study the function of NUPR1 in growth of nonsmall cell lung cancer. A lentivirus-mediated RNAi technology was used to specifically knock down the expression of NUPR1 in H1299 cells. Quantitative real-time reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction, flow cytometry, western blot and cell count assays were studied to characterize NUPR1 expression in vitro. Furthermore, nonsmall cell lung cancer xenograft models in nude mice were established to investigate whether knockdown of NUPR1 reduces the tumor growth in vivo. We found that downregulation of NUPR1 expression significantly inhibited nonsmall cell lung cancer H1299 cells proliferation and colony formation in vitro. Moreover, the specific downregulation of NUPR1 arrested cells in G0 phase of cell cycle and increased apoptosis rate. Silencing of NUPR1 also suppressed tumor growth by tail vein injection of lentivirus encoded shRNA against NUPR1 in vivo. Our findings revealed that the NUPR1 gene represents a promising target for gene silencing therapy in nonsmall cell lung cancer.