OBJECTIVETo investigate the suppression effect of exogenous fragile histidine triad (FHIT) gene on biological property of MEC-1 cells.

METHODSIn order to study the FHIT function in MEC-1 cells, wild-type FHIT gene was transferred into mucoepidermoid carcinoma MEC-1 cells. The proliferation and kinetics, cell cycle, clonal forming rate, and apoptosis of MEC-1 cells, before and after FHIT gene transfection in vitro, and tumor loci formed on mice after injection of transferred MEC-1 cells in vivo were observed by immunochemical staining, flow cytometry analysis, and so on.

RESULTSIt can be seen that exogenous FHIT gene transfer could significantly inhibit the proliferation and reduce the kinetics of MEC-1 cells in vitro, prolong DT from (21.03+/-0.41) h to (26.86+/-0.71) h, and also keep less cells in cell cycle phase S, whilst more cells in phase G1, Additionally, the exogenous FHIT was found to be able to remarkably suppress MEC-1 cells of forming tumor loci in nude mice by lessen tumor weight, and promote higher differentiation of MEC-1 cells to be mucous cells.

CONCLUSIONExogenous FHIT gene could suppress the proliferation, tumorigenicity and improve the differentiation of MEC-1 cells, in vitro and in vivo.