The plasma levels of septin-9 and clusterin in ovarian cancer patients were abnormally elevated, which might be used as potential candidates of peripheral blood tumor biomarkers for early diagnosis of EOC and septin-9 might be related to distal metastases of EOC. The septin-9 might play the promotion role, which protein level relates to not only the distal metastases but also the prognosis of EOC. Due to the limit of sample volume, further enlargement of the sample size and set up of the follow-up system is in need to in-depth study the relationship between plasma protein concentration with the distal metastases, and further explore its correlation with the prognosis of EOC.

Abstract. The present study aimed to investigate the effects of Na + /H + exchanger regulatory factor 1 (NHERF1) gene knockdown, using short-hairpin RNA (shRNA), on the malignant behaviors of prostate cancer cells. A pSuper.puro NHERF1 shRNA vector was transfected into PC-3M prostate cancer cells using Lipofectamine 2000. Stable cell lines were obtained and NHERF1 knockdown was verified through western blot analysis. MTT assays were then used to measure PC-3M cell proliferation; in addition, cell migration was assessed using a wound healing assay. Flow cytometry was employed in order to determine the effects of NHERF1 knockdown on apoptosis. Expression levels of apoptotic pathway proteins B cell lymphoma-2 (Bcl-2) and Bcl-2-associated X protein were then determined by western blot analysis. The results demonstrated that shRNA knockdown of NHERF1 significantly suppressed the proliferation of PC-3M cells by >50%. In addition, knockdown of NHERF1 significantly inhibited the migration of PC-3M cells. PC-3M cells harboring NHERF1 shRNA exhibited significantly increased apoptosis, with an ~4-fold increase compared with that of the parental PC-3M cells and cells transfected with an empty vector. Furthermore, the results revealed that knockdown of NHERF1 reduced the protein expression of Bcl-2, although the expression of Bax was unaltered. In conclusion, NHERF1 knockdown using shRNA inhibited the proliferation and migration of PC-3M cells and promoted apoptosis, highlighting the role of NHERF1 in prostate cancer progression.