ABSTRACT
Promoters play critical roles in controlling the transcription of genes and are important as tools to drive heterologous expression for biotechnological applications. In addition to core transcription factor-binding motifs that assist in the binding of RNA polymerases, there are specific nucleotide sequences in a promoter region to allow regulation of gene expression. The allene oxide synthase (AOS) gene family are cytochrome P450s that are responsive to a variety of environmental stress, making them good candidates for the discovery of inducible promoters. Populus AOS homologs separate phylogenetically into two clades. Based on the 19 promoter motifs with significant abundance differences between the two clades, Clade I AOS genes are likely more responsive to hormones, salt, and pathogen, whereas clade II homologs are likely inducible by water stress. In this study, an upstream promoter from a Clade I poplar AOS encoding gene (AOS1) was cloned and used to drive the expression of a ß-glucuronidase (GUS) gene in Arabidopsis. AOS is an essential enzyme in the lipoxygenase pathway that is responsible for the production of many non-volatile oxylipins in plants, including the jasmonates, which are regulatory phytohormones coordinating a variety of biological and stress response functions. Consistent with AOS transcript expression patterns, we found that the poplar AOS1 promoter drives rapid and localized expression by wounding. The study provides insight on the responsive elements in the poplar AOS promoters, but more importantly identifies a strong wound-inducible and localized promoter for future applications.
ABSTRACT
Neuroblastoma is a solid tumor that occurs mainly in children. Malignant neuroblastomas have a poor prognosis because conventional chemotherapeutic agents are not very effective. Survivin, a member of the inhibitor of the apoptosis protein family, plays a significant role in cell division, inhibition of apoptosis, and promotion of cell proliferation and invasion. Previous studies found that survivin is highly expressed in some malignant neuroblastomas and is correlated with poor prognosis. The aim of this study was to investigate whether survivin could serve as a potential therapeutic target of human neuroblastoma. We employed RNA interference to reduce survivin expression in the human neuroblastoma SH-SY5Y cell line and analyzed the effect of RNA interference on cell proliferation and invasion in vitro and in vivo. RNA interference of survivin led to a significant decrease in invasiveness and proliferation and increased apoptosis in SH-SY5Y cells in vitro. RNA interference of survivin inhibited tumor growth in vivo by 68±13% (P=0.002) and increased the number of apoptotic cells by 9.8±1.2% (P=0.001) compared with negative small interfering RNA (siRNA) treatment controls. Moreover, RNA interference of survivin inhibited the formation of lung metastases by 92% (P=0.002) and reduced microvascular density by 60% (P=0.0003). Survivin siRNA resulted in significant downregulation of survivin mRNA and protein expression both in vitro and in vivo compared with negative siRNA treatment controls. RNA interference of survivin was found to be a potent inhibitor of SH-SY5Y tumor growth and metastasis formation. These results support further clinical development of RNA interference of survivin as a treatment of neuroblastoma and other cancer types.