Silence of Beclin1 in oral squamous cell carcinoma cells promotes proliferation, inhibits apoptosis, and enhances chemosensitivity

Xia Wang; Shu Li; Shuhua Wu; Lulu Xie; Peiyuan Wang

Silence of Beclin1 in oral squamous cell carcinoma cells promotes proliferation, inhibits apoptosis, and enhances chemosensitivity

Int J Clin Exp Pathol. 2017 Aug 1;10(8):8424-8433. eCollection 2017.

Authors

Xia Wang¹, Shu Li², Shuhua Wu¹, Lulu Xie³, Peiyuan Wang³

Affiliations

¹ Department of Pathology, Binzhou Medical University Yantai, Shandong, China.
² Shandong Provincial Key Laboratory of Oral Tissue Regeneration, Department of Periodontology, School of Stomatology Shandong University Jinan, Shandong, China.
³ Medical Imaging Research Institute, Binzhou Medical University Yantai, Shandong, China.

PMID: 31966694
PMCID: PMC6965406

Abstract

Increasing evidence indicates that autophagy plays an important role in regulating proliferation and apoptosis in several human diseases, including cancer. Beclin1 is the first tumor-suppressor gene in mammals involved in the regulation of autophagy. However, the function of Beclin1 in oral cancer cells is not clear at present. We investigated the effects of Beclin1 on the biological characteristics of oral carcinoma cells by Small interfering RNA (siRNA) technology. We found that Beclin1 silencing promoted proliferation, migration, and invasion of oral squamous cell carcinoma cells, and inhibited apoptosis primarily associated with upregulation of survivin and bcl-2. Further, Beclin1 silencing enhanced chemosensitivity to cisplatin. Thus, the Beclin1 gene is expected to become a new therapeutic target for oral cancer.

Keywords: Beclin1; apoptosis; chemosensitivity; oral squamous cell carcinoma.