Silence of PTEN in colorectal cancer cells via siRNA inhibits cell growth.

Colorectal cancer is one of the most commonly diagnosed cancers and is a leading cause of cancerrelated death worldwide. In this study, we aimed to examine the expression of PTEN in human colorectal cancer cell lines HCT-8 and to further investigate the functions of PTEN in colorectal cancer cells. Therefore, we established stably transfected HCT-8 cell lines expressing siRNA targeting the PTEN gene. Cell proliferation and cell migration of the siPTEN cells were characterized by the CCK-8 assay and the Transwell assay, respectively. Our results show that constitutive knockdown of the PTEN gene in siPTEN cells significantly promoted cell proliferation and migration. These results suggest that PTEN may play important roles in colorectal cancer cell proliferation and migration.