Abstract:

To investigate the effect of T cell factor 3(TCF3) gene silencing on the expression of Oct4 and to explore the mechanism of Oct4 expression regulation by TCF3 in mouse embryonic carcinoma F9 cells. Methods The TCF3 gene in F9 cells was silenced by RNAi technology and used as TCF3 silencing group;meanwhile blank control group (mock) and negative control group (scramble) were set up. The mRNA and protein expression levels of TCF3 and Oct4 in F9 cells in various groups were detected by RT-PCR and Western blotting methods.The expression of Oct4 in F9 cells was detected by immunofluorescence assay.Results Oct4 was highly expressed in nucleus of F9 cells.Compared with mock group and scramble group,the mRNA and protein expression levels of TCF3 in TCF3 silencing group were significantly decreased（P<0.01）,while the mRNA and protein expression levels of Oct4 were significantly increased（P<0.01）.There was no significant difference between mock group and scramble group（P>0.05）.Conclusion Gene silencing of TCF3 in F9 cells can obviously promote the transcription and expression of Oct4,which indicates that TCF3 can negatively regulate the expression of Oct4 in F9 cells as one of the inhibitors.

Key words: embryonic neoplasms, T cell factor 3, octamer 4, gene silencing