Metastatic role of galectin-1 in neuroendocrine cervical cancer

Cervical cancer is ranked top ten in the ranking of female cancer and the metastasis of cervical cancer is one of the main causes of decreasing five-year-survival rates. Neuroendocrine cervical cancer belongs to rare type of cervical cancer and is one of the more malignant cancer type, compared to squamous cell carcinoma and adenocarcinoma. In the previous work, we have carried out proteomics-based 2D-DIGE and MALDI-TOF-MS to analyze the differentially modulated proteins in neuroendocrine cells (HM-1) and other types of cervical cancer cells (Caski, ME-180, HeLa). In which, galectin-1 (LGALS1) was selected as the candidate protein due to high expression of LGALS1 in HM-1 cells. In this study, use small interfering RNA (siRNA) to knockdown LGALS1 expression in HM-1and HM-2 which isolated from human tissue. The migration ability and proliferation ability of neuroendocrine cervical cancer cells are effectively inhibited. Also, the de-regulation of cell cycle progression was observed during LGALS1 silencing. As a result, LGALS1 affects the migration and proliferation ability in neuroendocrine cervical cancer. The protein is potential to be a candidate to detect and treatment of neuroendocrine cervical cancer.