Effect of miRNAs on apoptotic leukemia cells induced by demethylcantharidin

AIM: To explore the role of miRNA expression in the process of antitumor drug demethylcantharidin (DMC)-induced leukemia cell apoptosis. METHODS: K562 cells were treated with DMC to induce apoptosis. Microarray assessment was performed to detect the changes of miRNAs. The expression of miRNAs was further detected by RT-PCR and real-time PCR. The miRNA-relative genes were analyzed by gene information softwares,and their expression was determined by ELISA analysis. RESULTS: The results of microarray showed that more than 290 miRNAs were differentially expressed after DMC treatment. The expression of miR-16, miR-34 and miR-125 increased at more than 1.5 folds in DMC treatment group determined by RT-PCR and real-time PCR analysis, while both miR-106 and miR-150 were down-expressed over 60％. Using microRNA TargetScan and miRanda analysis software, we found that the expression of oncogenes ( bcl-2, E2F1, E2F3 ) and tumor suppressor genes ( RB1, p53 ) may be regulated by the above miRNAs. The expression of RB1 and P53 proteins significantly increased, while Bcl-2, E2F1 and E2F3 proteins were obviously down-regulated after DMC treatment.CONCLUSION: DMC induces K562 cell apoptosis by regulating the expression of miRNAs and their relative genes.