Effect of RNA interference-mediated down-regulation of JMJD 2 A on cervical cancer

Cervical cancer is an important cause of cancer-related mortality and often has a poor prognosis because of its late diagnosis, aggressive local invasion, early metastasis, and poor response to chemotherapy and radiotherapy. It is expected that development of new strategies to block the tumorigenesis process will improve the disease prognosis. In this study, we tested our hypothesis that JMJD2A, a histone demethylase, may regulate cervical cancer cell motility, and silencing of it adversely affects cell biological characteristics. We used JMJD2A small interfering RNA (siRNA) to silence its expression in a cervical cancer cell line to determine whether JMJD2A regulates cell proliferation, migration and invasion in vitro. JMJD2A was overexpressed in cervical cancer tissue and cells, and its expression level was related to histological differentiation; the poorer the tissue differentiation, the higher the expression of JMJD2A. Furthermore, JMJD2A knockdown led to reduced SiHa cervical cancer cell proliferation, migration and invasion. Our results suggest that JMJD2A could be a novel therapeutic target in cervical cancer.