Down-regulating ATDC inhibits the proliferation of esophageal carcinoma cells.

Our previous study showed that Ataxia-Telangiectasia Group D Complementing gene (ATDC) expression was correlated with tumor aggressiveness and poor prognosis in patients with esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC). However, the roles of ATDC on the esophageal carcinoma cells remain unclear. The present study aimed to explore the effects of ATDC gene silencing on the growth and proliferation of esophageal carcinoma cell lines EC109 and EC9706 in vivo and in vitro. The lentivirus-mediated siRNA targeting ATDC was constructed and transfected into EC109 and EC9706 cells. After the gene silencing effects were confirmed by Western blot analyses, the growth and proliferation were determined by MTT, palte clone and flow cytometry analyses. The lentivirus-mediated siRNA markedly inhibited the expression of ATDC in both EC109 and EC9706 cells. MTT, plate colony formation and Xenograft assays illustrated that down-regulation of ATDC significantly repressed the growth of cells in vitro and in vivo. Furthermore, western blot assays revealed that ATDC down-regulation could decrease the expression of cyclinE in ESCC cell lines. We demonstrated that down-regulation of ATDC could inhibit the growth and proliferation partly through regulation of cyclin E.