Construction of p-hfgl2shRNA and its effect on hfgl2 expression in vitro / 中华肝脏病杂志

ABSTRACT

<p><b>OBJECTIVE</b>Our previous studies have shown that an anti-sense plasmid to mouse fibrinogen like protein 2 (mfgl2) significantly reduced mfgl2 expression in vivo, markedly ameliorated inflammatory infiltration, fibrin deposition and hepatocyte necrosis, prolonged the survival time period and elevated the survival rate in Balb/cJ mice with murine hepatitis virus type 3 (MHV-3) induced fulminant hepatitis. This study was designed to explore the opportunity of RNA interference technique in the inhibitory application of hfgl2 expression, which has been reported to be involved in a variety of disease developments including fulminant viral hepatitis, acute rejection of allo/xeno transplantation and fetal loss syndrome.</p><p><b>METHODS</b>A plasmid named p-hfgl2shRNA complimentary to the sequence responsible for hfgl2 was constructed; meanwhile irrelevant shRNA plasmid with a random combination of the p-hfgl2shRNA sequence was used as a control. A plasmid named pEGFP-hfgl2 expressing hfgl2-EGFP fusion protein was also constructed for the screening of the effect of p-hfgl2shRNA on the hfgl2 expression. By cotransfection of the constructed p-hfgl2shRNA and pEGFP-hfgl2 or pcDNA3.1-hfgl2 expression plasmids into CHO cells, the inhibition of hfgl2 expression by hfgl2shRNA was analyzed by direct observation through fluorescent microscopy, FACS, real time PCR and immunohistochemistry staining.</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>The experiments showed a significant inhibitory effect of p-hfgl2shRNA on hfgl2 expression at 48 h post-cotransfection by observation of green fluorescent cells, FACS, real time PCR and immunohistochemistry staining, with the inhibitory efficiency reaching as high as 85.5%.</p><p><b>CONCLUSION</b>The study demonstrated that p-hfgl2shRNA successfully interfered with hfgl2 expression in vitro. This provides a foundation to further explore its application in vivo.</p>