Ribosomal protein S13 is involved in colon cancer cell growth with no effect on apoptosis

Abstract

RPS13 is a ribosomal protein that is found to be overexpressed in many types of cancer. Studies have demonstrated its role in promoting tumor cell growth. The aim of our research is to decipher the effects of RPS13 knockdown on Caco-2 colon cancer cell line behavior including growth and apoptosis. First, we silenced RPS13 gene expression in Caco-2 using siRNA interference technique. We confirmed the knockdown efficiency by western blot analysis. We investigated the effect of RPS13 knockdown on Caco-2 cells proliferation using trypan blue staining assay, and apoptosis using Annexin V/ PI staining followed by flow cytometry analysis. We also studied the relationship between RPS13 and p53 upon RPS13 knockdown using western blot analysis. Our results demonstrated that targetingRPS13 by siRNA significantly decreases cancer cell growth and proliferation in vitro, while this knockdown does not affect apoptosis level nor p53 level. Our findings suggest that RPS13 can play an important role in the proliferation of colon cancer. Elucidating the mechanisms that lead to a reduction in Caco-2 cells proliferation upon RPS13 knockdown could be a novel target in the treatment of colon cancer.