Cancer cells are known to be heterogeneous and plastic, which imparts innate and acquired abilities to resist molecular targeting by short interfering RNA (siRNA). Not all cancer cells in a population would show a similar responsiveness to targeting of genes critical for their survival and even the responders could quickly transform and switch to alternative mechanism(s) for their survival. This study was designed to look at this phenomenon by analyzing the effect of siRNA silencing of selected protein mRNAs involved in cell survival and proliferation on other protein mRNAs that could contribute to cell survival. We compared the gene expression profile of the initial population after siRNA silencing to the subpopulation that survived the siRNA silencing, to identify potential overexpressions that might explain the cell survival. Our studies show that silencing well-selected protein mRNAs simultaneously could offer advantages compared to individual siRNA silencing due to an additional impact on the expression level of certain protein mRNAs. We also demonstrate that overexpression of certain protein mRNAs could explain the innate unresponsiveness of a subpopulation of cells. These observations could be a stepping stone for further investigation of the possibility of significant synergistic effect for this combinational RNA interference strategy.
Keywords: cancer cells; pathways; signaling; silencing; small interfering RNA (siRNA).