Introduction/Background PTEN is known as a tumor suppressor protein that are frequently mutated or down regulated in various human cancers. Down regulation of PTEN, however, may induce anti proliferative effect.

The authors investigate the apoptosis of cancer cells after down regulation of PTEN in epithelial ovarian cancer cells.

Methodology Epithelial ovarian cancer cells, SK-OV-3 was cultured with 10% FBS in culture medium. The siRNA for PTEN and control were constructed and transfected with Lipofectamine. The experiments were FACS for investigating the proportion of apoptotic cells and Western blot for proteins analysis.

Results Apoptosis cell proportion was significantly increased (p=0.001) on FACS analysis. Expression of P53 was not detected in both PTEN downregulated cells or not on western blot. Expression of p21was increased and expression of cyclin B1 decreased in PTEN down regulated cells on western blots.

Conclusion Down regulation of PTEN induce apoptosis in epithelial ovarian cancer cells and could be a new strategy for ovarian cancer treatment.

Disclosure Nothing to disclose.