Our results

revealed a closure of wound within 12h in control siRNA transfected cells, while see more MDA-MB-231 cells transfected with SPAG9 siRNA failed to close the wound scratch even after 48 h (Figure 4). This data clearly indicated that SPAG9 is involved in cellular motility and early spread of breast cancer cells, suggesting that SPAG9 may be involved in migration and invasion of MDA-MB-231 cells. Figure 4 Down regulation of SPAG9 causes reduction in wound healing capacity of MDA-MB-231 cells. MDA-MB-231 cells transfected with SPAG9 siRNA showed significantly reduced cellular motility even after 48 h. In contrast, MDA-MB-231 cells transfected LDK378 chemical structure with control siRNA revealed closing of wound within 12 h. Results are from three independent experiments. SPAG9 depletion reduced tumor growth in vivo Our in vitro data indicated that ablation of SPAG9 expression by SPAG9 siRNA significantly reduced colony formation which led us to investigate

its effect on human breast xenograft tumor growth in nude mice in vivo. To determine the effect of SPAG9 siRNA or control siRNA on tumor growth, mice were treated with control siRNA or SPAG9 siRNA and were observed for 42 days. A representative photograph shows reduced tumor growth in SPAG9 siRNA treated group compared with control siRNA treated group (Figure 5a). The tumor volume of mice injected BX-795 purchase with SPAG9 siRNA showed a significant reduction in tumor growth as compared to mice administered with control siRNA (Figure 5b; P < 0.001). Furthermore, in order to investigate whether the reduction of tumor growth is a result of ablation of SPAG9 expression, the xenograft tumors were excised and processed for immunohistochemical staining for SPAG9 protein expression. As depicted in Figure 5c, the SPAG9 protein was ablated in SPAG9 siRNA treated mice compared with mice treated with control siRNA. Furthermore to investigate whether SPAG9 siRNA treated animals which

showed reduced tumor growth was associated with reduced cellular proliferation, serial tumor sections were probed for PCNA expression. Our data revealed that there was significant reduction of PCNA expression (72%; P < 0.0001) in tumors treated with SPAG9 siRNA treated compared with control siRNA as shown in Figure 5c and histograms (Figure 5d). These results 5-Fluoracil clinical trial suggest that SPAG9 may be a molecular target for novel cancer treatment modalities. Figure 5 Effect of down regulation of SPAG9 expression in breast cancer xenograft model. (a) A representative photomicrograph showing nude mice with tumor (arrows) treated with control siRNA or SPAG9 siRNA plasmid. (b) a graph representing tumor volume calculated on the indicated days revealed significant reduction in the tumor growth in mice treated with SPAG9 siRNA plasmid compared with control siRNA (n = 8; *, P < 0.0001). (c) Immunohistochemical analysis of proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA) and SPAG9 protein in control siRNA and SPAG9 siRNA treated tumors.