Abstract: Objective To investigate the effect of eIF4H down-expression on the proliferation and erthroid differentiation of MEL cells. Methods The eIF4H-shRNA-1 or eIF4H-shRNA-2 plasmid, pCMV-VSVG and pCMV-dR8.2 were cotransfected into HEK293T cells to obtain Lentivirus. Lentivirus was infected into MEL cells to establish the stably eIF4H down-expressed MEL cells, Western blot was used to analyze the interference efficiency. Cells proliferation potential was measured by MTT assay; flow cytometry was used to detect the cell cycle; benzidine staining was applied to detect erythroid differentiation. Results Compared with the control, the expression of eIF4H was significantly down-regulated, the growth ability was significantly weaked, the percentage of cells in G1 phase significantly increased in eIF4H-shRNA-2 cells; benzidine-positive cells showed no difference between two group cells, but after sodium butyrate treatment, benzidine-positive cells was significantly increased in eIF4H-shRNA-2 cells. Conclusions We successfully established a stable eIF4H down-expressed MEL cells model; eIF4H down-expression can inhibit MEL cells proliferative capacity; MEL cells can not induce erythroid differentiation by eIF4H down-expression, but promote sodium butyrate-induced erythroid differentiation of MEL cells.

Key words: eIF4H, MEL cells, erythroid differentiation