The effects of ribosomal protein S3 (RPS3) suppression on inflammatory cytokine levels in colorectal cancer

Abstract

In addition to the very important ribosomal role of RPS3 in ribosome assembly, it is also known to have several extra-ribosomal functions such as in tumorigenesis and immune signaling. Studies have shown that RPS3 is one of the RPs that are overexpressed in Colorectal Cancer (CRC). In addition, RPS3 plays a synergistic role in the NF-kB signaling pathway responsible for the regulation of many pro- and anti- inflammatory cytokines. In this study, we aim to find the possible role of RPS3 in the regulation of the pro-inflammatory cytokines IL-1β, IL-6, and TNF-α. To reach this objective, we first performed RPS3 Knockdown in Caco-2 colon cancer cell line using siRNA interference technique and verified this knockdown using Western Blot Analysis. Then, we performed ELISA Assays for each cytokine separately and analyzed their concentrations in different conditions using GraphPad. We showed in the present study an increasing trend in the concentration of IL-1β and IL-6 cytokines when comparing stimulated control cells to stimulated transfected cells with no effect on TNF-α. However, the results demonstrate that the knockdown of RPS3 did not have a significant effect on the levels of these cytokines when comparing between control cells and cells transfected with siRPS3. These results could be found statistically significant where more studies should be taken into consideration in order to understand the possible role of RPS3 and thus demonstrate a new therapeutic strategy in treating CRC.