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Research Paper
Targeting the Short Form of cFLIP by RNA Interference is Sufficient to Enhance TRAIL Sensitivity in PC3 Prostate Carcinoma Cells
Shai J. White, Lu Ping, Gina Keller and Christina Voelkel-Johnson
volume 5 | issue 12
december 2006Pages: 1618 - 1623
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The pro-apoptotic death receptor ligand tumor necrosis factor-related apoptosis-inducing ligand (TRAIL) has received significant attention as a novel cancer therapeutic, since it selectively induces apoptosis in malignant and not normal cells. Unfortunately, prostate cancer cells display little if any susceptibility to TRAIL-induced apoptosis. However, sensitivity to TRAIL is enhanced by doxorubicin, which correlated with a decrease in expression of the caspase-8 inhibitor cFLIP (Kelly et. al. Cancer Biology & Therapy 1: 520). In this study we show that doxorubicin induces a time- and dose-dependent loss of cFLIP protein, but does not affect steady-state mRNA levels. Proteasome inhibition stabilized cFLIPL in the presence of doxorubicin. Although proteasome inhibitors increased basal levels of short cFLIP isoforms, cFLIPS declined at a similar rate in the absense or presence of proteasome inhibition during doxorubicin treatment. Ectopic expression of a cFLIPSGFP fusion protein protected PC3 cells from TRAIL-induced apoptosis in the absence or presence of doxorubicin, whereas downregulation of cFLIPS by RNA interference resulted in sensitization to TRAIL-induced apoptosis. We conclude that doxorubicin-mediated downregulation of cFLIPS, which occurs at the post-transcriptional level independent of proteasome-mediated pathways, is sufficient to enhance TRAIL sensitivity in PC3 prostate carcinoma cells.
We now provide open access to journal articles published online for one year or more. This article may be downloaded at the following link:
Download PDFIf the document does not open, please right-click on the link (control-click on a Macintosh) and select the option to save the file to disk.