Abstract: Objective To investigate the effects of caveolin-1 on apoptosis of laryngeal squamous cell carcinoma cell line HEp2. Methods Human caveolin-1 gene were transfected into HEp2 cell line, the positive clones with high expression of caveolin-1 were identified by fluorescence quantitative real time reverse transcriptase-polymerse chain reaction（Real-time RT-PCR）and Western Blot. Cell cycle and apoptosis were analyzed by Flow cytometry. Caspase-3 relative activities were calculated according to the changs of optical density after reaction with caspase-3 substrate. Real-time RT-PCR was used to determine the expression level of survivin mRNA and the expression of bcl-2 and survivin protein were detected by Western Blot. Results the clones stably overexpressing caveolin-1 were obtained, namely HEp2-CAV1. Overexpressing caveolin-1 resulted in the cell cycle arrest at G0/G1 phase and increased the apoptosis cell fraction. Compared with the parental HEp2 cells, the realtive activites of caspase-3 increased by 2.72 fold（p<0.05）, the expression level of survivin mRNA reduced by 74%（p<0.01） and the protein bcl-2 significantly decreased in HEp2-CAV1 cells, respectively. Conclusion overexpression of caveolin-1 induces apoptosis in laryngeal squamous cell carcinoma HEp2 cell line, downregulation of bcl-2 and survivin expression may be involved in its mechanism.

Key words: laryngeal tumor, caveolin, apoptosis