Lentivirus-mediated RhoT1 down-expression inhibits pancreatic cancer cells proliferation, migration and invasion, and induces apoptosis

The aim of this study was to construct a lentivirus vector targeting RhoT1 gene and to investigate the functional role of RhoT1 in pancreatic cancer cell line BXPC3. Firstly, we constructed a lentivirus plasmid of RNA interference targeting RhoT1. The expression of RhoT1 mRNA and protein was analyzed by qRT-PCR and Western blot. The CCK-8 cell proliferation assay, flow cytometry, wound healing assay and transwell assay were adopted to assess the effect of RhoT1 on cell proliferation, apoptosis and invasion ability. In vitro functional study indicated that down-expression of RhoT1 could significantly inhibit the proliferation, migration, and invasion of BXPC3 pancreatic carcinoma cells while promoting apoptosis (all P<0.01). In conclusion, Recombinant lentivirus vector expressing human RhoT1 gene was successfully constructed and pancreatic cancer cell line with stable shRNA expression targeting RhoT1 gene was established, which could provide a cell model for the further experiment, and our data indicated that RhoT1 shRNA played an important role in the inhibition of pancreatic cancer cells.