Up-regulated expression of Ran reveals its potential role to deltamethrin stress in Kc cells

• Ran expression was increased in response to deltamethrin treatment.
• Ran-transfected cells demonstrated increased capacity for deltamethrin detoxification.
• Ran knockdown attenuated cell viability with deltamethrin treatment.
• This study investigated the possible role of Ran in the regulation of deltamethrin stress reaction in D. melanogaster Kc cells.

The GTP-binding nuclear protein Ran has mostly been reported to be an essential player in nuclear transport, chromosome alignment, microtubule dynamics, centrosome duplication, kinetochore attachment of microtubules, nuclear-envelope dynamics, and phagocytosis. However, until now, there has been no report showing the involvement of Ran in DM stress. In this paper, two-dimensional electrophoresis analysis showed that the expression level of Ran in Kc cells in response to DM was higher than that in the control group. In addition, quantitative analysis using real-time PCR revealed that the expression of Ran was obviously up-regulated at various concentrations of DM. Western blot analysis showed that Ran was up-regulated 2.27-fold over the control at 48 h. Because we still could not pinpoint whether Ran was actually involved in DM stress reaction, to further verify the role of Ran in stress reaction, RNA interference and cell transfection were utilized. Overexpression of Ran in cells conferred a degree of protection against DM after 72 h. Furthermore, interference with Ran significantly decrease cell viability. All of the above findings strongly imply that Ran may participate in the development of stress reaction to DM. Therefore, investigating the possible role of Ran in DM stress will broaden our limited knowledge regarding DM stress inducible genes.