Objective: To study the expression of enoyl CoA hydratase 1 (ECH1) and the effect when down-regulation of ECH1 gene expression in mouse hepatocarcinoma cell.
Methods: Immunofluorescence was used for detecting the expression of ECH1, and stably transfected Hca-F cells with pGPU6/GFP/Neo-shRNA-ECH1 expression plasmids. Cell proliferation was assessed by Cell counting kit-8 (CCK8) assay. The Boyden-transwell assay (8 µm pore size) was performed to analyze the inhibitory effect of shRNA on Hca-F cell migration and invasion.
Results: ECH1 expression was obtained in the cytoplasm and upregulated expression in Hca-F cells than that in Hca-P cells. The down-regulation of ECH1 could inhibit the cell proliferation of Hca-F cells, decrease the number of cell pass through Transwell (27.07 ± 17.49) compared with scramble-negative (72.38 ± 18.83) and Hca-F controls (59.06 ± 30.33), decrease the migration capacities of Hca-F cells, increase the ratio of Hca-F cells in S phase (86.1%) compared with scramble-negative (75.8%) and Hca-F controls (66.2%) and decrease the ratio of G(1) phase (9.4%) compared with scramble-negative (24.2%) and Hca-F controls (30.3%).
Conclusion: ECH1 serves as a potential critical factor attributes to tumor lymphatic metastasis.