Effect of combination therapy of siRNA targeting growth hormone receptor and 5-fluorouracil in hepatic metastasis of colon cancer

The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of small interfering RNA (siRNA) targeting human growth hormone receptor (hGHR) combined with 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) on the hepatic metastasis of colon cancer. The animal model of liver metastases using human SW480 colon cancer cells was established on BALB/c mice and the siRNA interfering plasmid targeting hGHR gene was constructed. The tumor-bearing mice were randomly divided into the saline control, plasmid, growth hormone (GH), 5-FU, 5-FU+plasmid and 5-FU+plasmid+GH groups. The liver metastasis in each group was observed. All the animals showed liver metastases and using siRNA-interfering plasmid treatment the incidence of liver metastases was significantly reduced in the tumor groups compared to the saline or GH group. The combined treatment of interfering plasmid and 5-FU slightly decreased the incidence of liver metastases in the tumor groups compared to the plasmid alone or 5-FU alone treatment, although the findings were not statistically significant. On the basis of the combination of interfering plasmid and 5-FU, the additional GH did not increase the incidence of liver metastases (P>0.05), but improved the weight loss of the mice (P<0.05) induced by the inhibition of GHR and toxicity of 5-FU. The present results showed that siRNA targeting hGHR is able to reduce the incidence of liver metastases of human SW480 colon cancer cells in mice. Thus, GHR may be important in tumor metastasis.