Induced Apoptosis Investigation in Wild-type and FLT3-ITD Acute Myeloid Leukemia Cells by Nanochannel Electroporation and Single-cell qRT-PCR

Mol Ther. 2016 May;24(5):956-64. doi: 10.1038/mt.2016.6. Epub 2016 Jan 19.

Abstract

Nanochannel electroporation (NEP) was applied to deliver precise dosages of myeloid cell leukemia-1 (Mcl-1)-specific siRNA and molecular beacons to two types of acute myeloid leukemia (AML) cells, FMS-like tyrosine kinase-3 wild-type (WT) and internal tandem duplications (ITD) type at the single-cell level. NEP, together with single-cell quantitative reverse transcription PCR, led to an observation showing nearly 20-folds more Mcl-1 siRNA than MCL1 mRNA were required to induce cell death for both cell lines and patient blasts, i.e., ~8,800 siRNAs for ~500 ± 50 mRNAs in ITD cells and ~6,000 siRNAs for ~300 ± 50 mRNAs in WT cells. A time-lapse study revealed that >75% MCL1 mRNA was downregulated within 1 hour after delivery of a small amount of siRNA. However, additional siRNA was required to inhibit the newly transcribed mRNA for >12 hours until the cell lost its ability of self-protection recovery. A multidelivery strategy of low doses and short delivery interval, which require 77% less siRNA and has the potential of lower side effects and clinical cost, was as effective as a single high-dose siRNA delivery. Our method provides a viable analytical tool to investigate gene silencing at the single-cell level for oligonucleotide-based therapy.

Publication types

  • Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural
  • Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.

MeSH terms

  • Apoptosis
  • Cell Line, Tumor
  • Cell Proliferation / drug effects
  • Cell Survival / drug effects
  • Electroporation
  • Humans
  • Leukemia, Myeloid, Acute / genetics*
  • Leukemia, Myeloid, Acute / therapy
  • Mutation
  • Myeloid Cell Leukemia Sequence 1 Protein / antagonists & inhibitors*
  • RNA, Small Interfering / pharmacology*
  • Real-Time Polymerase Chain Reaction / methods
  • Single-Cell Analysis / methods*
  • Tandem Repeat Sequences
  • Transfection
  • fms-Like Tyrosine Kinase 3 / genetics*

Substances

  • MCL1 protein, human
  • Myeloid Cell Leukemia Sequence 1 Protein
  • RNA, Small Interfering
  • FLT3 protein, human
  • fms-Like Tyrosine Kinase 3