Knockdown of nucleophosmin by RNA interference reverses multidrug resistance in resistant leukemic HL-60 cells

Nucleophosmin, a multifunctional nucleolar phosphoprotein, is involved in many cellular activities. However, the role of NPM in drug-resistance of leukemia has not yet been explored. We designed and selected one shRNA targeting on NPM gene transduction into HL-60 and HL-60/ADR cell lines (an adriamycin resistant cell line) by lentivirus. Cell proliferation, apoptosis and differentiation were assessed. The expressions of the related genes and proteins were detected by real-time quantitative RT-PCR and Western blotting. The results showed obvious down-regulation of NPM mRNA and protein levels after NPM RNAi. NPM-targeted RNAi also resulted in many cellular changes, such as, suppressing cell proliferation and inducing cell differentiation. Down-regulation of NPM gene could arrest the cell cycle progression, an increase in the proportion of G0/G1 phase in knockdown groups. NPM gene silencing could also induce pro-apoptotic genes and proteins expression, and inhibit anti-apoptotic genes/proteins expression. Furthermore, IC50 of two chemotherapeutic agents (adriamycin and ADR; daunorubicin and DNR) to HL-60 and HL-60/ADR cells decreased, especially more remarkable on HL-60/ADR cells. IC50 of ADR on HL-60/ADR cells was reduced from 12.544 ± 0.851 μmol/L (before NPM RNAi) to 6.331 ± 0.522 μmol/L (after NPM RNAi), IC50 of DNR was reduced from 2.152 ± 0.143 μmol/L (before NPM RNAi) to 1.116 ± 0.093 μmol/L (after NPM RNAi). The relative reversal rate of HL-60/ADR cells on ADR was 50.2%, and on DNR was 48.9%. In conclusion, our results demonstrated that shRNA expression vectors could effectively reduce NPM expression and restore the drug sensitivity of resistant leukemic cells to conventional chemotherapeutic agents.