Survivin - An attractive target for RNAi in non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, Daudi cell line as a model

RNA interference (RNAi) has been widely used in tumor gene therapy, antivirus and gene drug selection. Survivin gene is highly expressed in non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL) tissues and high malignancy Burkitt's lymphoma cell line-Daudi and it is regarded as a potential target of gene therapy for NHL. This study used a vector-based short hairpin RNA (shRNA) technique to explore the effect of RNAi-mediated survivin gene silencing on apoptosis and proliferation of Daudi cells. Recombinant plasmid survivin-shRNA was transfected into Daudi cells transiently and stably. The expression of survivin was detected by semi-quantitative reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) and Western blot. The apoptosis of Daudi cells after transfection were evaluated by flow cytometry. After transfection of survivin-shRNA, the levels of survivin mRNA were significantly reduced by 64.20% (transient transfection) and 62.32% (stable transfection), respectively; The levels of survivin protein were significantly reduced by 63.50% (transient transfection) and 61.88% (stable transfection); compared with control-shRNA and PBS treated groups. Apoptosis of Daudi cells were significantly higher in the transfection group than in the control group, respectively 21.30 +/- 2.96% (transient transfection) and 19.10 +/- 2.15% (stable transfection). In conclusion, it was suggested that survivin could be an attractive target for new anti-cancer intervention of NHL and vector-based survivins-hRNA could effectively reduce the expression of survivin and induce cell apoptosis and growth inhibition of NHL cells.