Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Qilu Hospital of Shandong University, Jinan, China.
Reprod Biol Endocrinol. 2012 Sep 18;10:83. doi: 10.1186/1477-7827-10-83.
Paracrine signaling of the hepatocyte growth factor (HGF) cytokine plays an important role in survival and invasion ability of placental trophoblasts. However, the intracellular factors and biological pathways underlying these responses remain unclear.
This study investigated whether HGF affected the expression of homeobox gene HLX1, which is principally expressed in reproductive tissues and in some immune cells, and evaluated the implications of such in the HGF-induced human trophoblast cell line HTR-8/SVneo.
HGF was found to up-regulate both HLX1 mRNA and protein levels. Transient transfection of small interfering RNA (siRNA) targeting HLX1 abrogated its induction by HGF. Functionally, HLX1 siRNA not only reduced the growth and invasion capacities of HTR-8/SVneo cells at the basal level, but also inhibited these responses induced by HGF treatment.
HLX1 is an essential downstream signaling component of HGF that leads to growth and invasiveness of trophoblast cells.
肝细胞生长因子（HGF）细胞因子的旁分泌信号在胎盘滋养层细胞的存活和侵袭能力中发挥着重要作用。然而，这些反应背后的细胞内因素和生物学途径仍不清楚。
本研究探讨了 HGF 是否影响主要在生殖组织和一些免疫细胞中表达的同源盒基因 HLX1 的表达，并评估了其在 HGF 诱导的人滋养层细胞系 HTR-8/SVneo 中的意义。
发现 HGF 上调了 HLX1 mRNA 和蛋白水平。靶向 HLX1 的小干扰 RNA（siRNA）的瞬时转染可阻断其由 HGF 诱导。功能上，HLX1 siRNA 不仅降低了 HTR-8/SVneo 细胞在基础水平上的生长和侵袭能力，而且还抑制了 HGF 处理诱导的这些反应。
HLX1 是 HGF 的一个重要的下游信号转导成分，导致滋养层细胞的生长和侵袭。
