Inhibitory effect of wild-type p53 gene expression driven by hTERT promoter in targeting gene therapy for human bladder transitional cell carcinoma

Objective: To investigate the growth inhibition effects of the wild-type p53 gene vector controlled by human telomerase reverse transcriptase （hTERT） promoter on targeting gene therapy of bladder carcinoma. Methods: Human bladder cancer cell line T24 and fetus pulmonary fibroblast was transfected with EGFP as reporter gene and wild-type p53 gene as therapeutic gene under control of hTERT promoter. The gene expression was measured of EGFP by fluorescent microscopy; the cell growth was evaluated by trypan blue dye exclusion method, the morphological changes and apoptosis detection were observed with inverted and transmission electron microscope （TEM）, and changes of apoptosis rate and cell cycle were assessed by flow cytometry （FCM）, respectively.Results: Expression of EGFP driven by hTERT gene promoter was detected in T24 cells with telomerase activity. Recombinant adenovirus phTERT-p53 could selectively infect T24 cells, and the growth of T24 cells was significantly suppressed（P＜0.05）, the cell inhibition rate was raised to 48.5% after being transfected with phTERT-p53 for 72h, and the apoptosis was detected. There were increased proportions of cells in the G0/G1 phase of the cell cycle.Conclusion: The growth of the bladder cancer cells could be inhibited by the wild-type p53 target gene expression under control of the hTERT promoter through apoptosis, which may well be one of the ideal strategies for targeted gene therapy for bladder carcinoma.