Elevated expression of Dickkopf-1 increases the sensitivity of human glioma cell line SHG44 to BCNU

Background: studies have shown that dickkopf-1 (dkk-1) is involved in tumorigenesis. recently,we found that 9 out of 12 human glioma cell lines had high level of dkk-1 protein while the other 3 had very low or non-detectable level of dkk-1. the aim of this study is to further examine the function of dkk-1 in glioma cells. materials and methods: the glioma cell line shg 44was obtained from a patient with grade ii-iii astrocytoma. shg 44cells were transfected with a human dkk-1 gene. transfection of the empty vector pcdna3.1 was used as negative control. sensitivity to bcnu was measured by annexin-v staining. expression of bax,bcl-2 and caspase-3 of three groups was determined by immunohistochemistry. results: the tranfection was confirmed by pcr,rt-pcr and western blot. more apoptotic cell death was observed in the dkk-1 transfected cells,comparing to the non-transfected cells,or cells with empty vector. the expression of bax and caspase-3 of the shg 44-ddk-1 increased,whereas the expression of bcl-2 decreased. conclusion: our results indicated that dkk-1 has a pro-apoptotic function of in glioma. © 2010 zhou et al; licensee biomed central ltd.