Down-regulation of GnT-V enhances nasopharyngeal carcinoma cell CNE-2 radiosensitivity in vitro and in vivo

The purpose of this study was to investigate the role of GnT-V on radiosensitivity in human nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) both in vitro and in vivo, and the possible mechanism. The GnT-V stably suppressed cell line CNE-2 GnT-V/2224 was constructed from CNE-2 by transfection. The radiosensitivity of the cells was studied by CCK-8 assay, flow-cytometry, caspases-3 activity analysis and tumor xenografts model. The expression of Bcl-2, Bax and Bcl-xl was analyzed with or without radiation. The results showed that down-regulation of GnT-V enhanced CNE-2 radiosensitivity. The underlying mechanisms may be link to the cell cycle G2-M arrest and the reduction of Bcl-2/Bax ratio. The results suggest that GnT-V may be a potential target for predicting NPC response to radiotherapy.

► First investigated the role of GnT-V on the radiosensitivity of NPC cells in vitro and in vivo.
► The mechanisms of the changing radiosensitivity were also investigated.
► In this study, more than one experiment methods were used to investigate a problem.