Objective To explore the effect of wild type or mutant parkin gene expression on the growth of human hepatocellular carcinoma cell line Huh-7. Methods The parkin (wild type or mutant) expression vector and empty vector were transferred into Huh-7 cell lines with LipofectAMINE 2000 reagents. The positive clones that expressed parkin gene stably were chosen by G418 and checked by reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) to check the DNA sequences. The cytobiological behaviors of those positive clones were analyzed by cell proliferation assay and tumorigenesis in nude mice. Results Huh-7 cell lines that expressed wild type or mutant parkin gene stably were successfully established. The growth of wild type parkin-expressed cells was obviously inhibited compared with the control cells transfected with empty vectors(t= 3. 875, P= 0. 031).The volume of tumor formed by wild type parkin-expressing cells in nude mice was also significantly reduced (t=8. 228,P=-0. 003). Mutant parkin gene expression had a slight effect on the growth of Huh-7 cells in vitro and in vivo (P＞0.05). Conclusion The re-expression of wild type parkin gene can favor the malignant phenotype revision of Huh-7 cells. Therefore, it might be a good candidate for tumor suppressor gene associated with HCC.

Bacterial Proteins ; chemistry ; Bacterial Secretion Systems ; Crystallography, X-Ray ; Legionella pneumophila ; metabolism ; Models, Molecular ; Protein Structure, Tertiary