Short hairpin RNA–mediated inhibition of S100A4 promotes apoptosis and suppresses proliferation of BGC823 gastric cancer cells in vitro and in vivo

S100A4 has been found to be over-expressed in gastric cancer and associated with poor prognosis of the patients, yet the exact role and molecular mechanism of S100A4 in gastric cancer has not been determined. We found that S100A4 inhibition by RNAi lead to reduced proliferation and increased apoptosis of gastric cancer cell line BGC823. Intratumoral injection of pS100A4-shRNA suppressed tumor growth in nude mice. We also found that S100A4 inhibition decreased the expression of both NF-κB p65 and phospho(Ser32)-I-κB-α. Our results suggested that S100A4 may be an attractive candidate for the therapeutic targeting of gastric cancer.