Effects Of A Human Plasma Membrane-Associated Sialidase Sirna On Prostate Cancer

Human plasma membrane-associated sialidase (Neu3) mainly localized in plasma membranes and plays crucial roles in the regulation of cell surface functions. We investigated the effects and molecular mechanisms of Neu3 on cell growth and apoptosis in vivo and in vitro in this study. Initially, we found the levels of Neu3 expression were higher in prostate cancer tissues and cell lines than in normal prostate tissues. We then applied a Neu3 siRNA approach to block Neu3 signaling using PC-3M cells as model cells. PC-3M cells transfected with Neu3-specific short hairpin RNA plasmid inhibited cell proliferation and induced apoptosis significantly. Knocking down neu3 decreased the expression of Bcl-2 and increased the expression of Bax, Caspase-3 in PC-3M cells. The experiments suggest that Neu3 is a promising molecular target for prostate cancer therapy.