Bioinformatics analysis
To discover possible clear cell renal cell carcinoma genes, RNA-seq and RNA-seqV2 were downloaded from website of The Genomic Data Commons, containing 506 and 72 paired of ccRCC tissue and normal samples, respectively. All mRNA expression data were normalized. To prevent bias of the samples, we observed the biological coefficient of variation (BCV). The gene expression between cancer and normal tissue samples were compared to identify the differentially expressed gene.
Chemical and antibodies
Anti-Pole2 was purchased from Sigma (St. Louis, MO, USA). 3-(4,5-dimethylthia- zol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide (MTT) was purchased from Genview (League, TX, USA). Primary antibody against AKT, p-AKT, mTOR and p-mTOR were purchased from Cell Signaling Technology (Beverly, MA, USA). The antibody against GAPDH was obtained from Best ( Nanjing, Jiangsu, P.R.C).
Renal cell carcinoma samples
fresh matched pairs tissue samples were harvested from 94 patients with renal cell carcinoma who underwent radical nephrectomy or partial nephrectomy between March and August 2017. As for all the patients, written informed consents were obtained, and the protocol was approved by Ethical Committee of Harbin Medical University Cancer Hospital. The cancer tissues and adjacent normal tissues were fixed with 4% paraformaldehyde for 24 h and then paraffin-embedded for immunohistochemistry.
Cell culture
The human renal cell carcinoma cells 786O, and ACHN were obtained from ATCC, and cultured in DMEM medium (Hyclone) that were added with 10% fetal bovine serum (GIBCO), penicillin G (100 U/ml), and streptomycin (100 μg/ml) (Sigma-Aldrich). All the cells cultured as a monolayer culture at 37°C in a humidified atmosphere containing 5% CO2.
Lentivrus vectors construction and infection
The lentiviral vectors were purchased from Shanghai Genechem Company Ltd., China, which composed of the vectors hU6-MCS-CMV-EGFP, and pHelper1.0 and Helper2.0 plasmids. The siRNA sequences targeting pole2 gene were 5’ -CCTATTTCCCATGATTCCTTCATA-3’ and 5’-GTAATACGGTTATCCACGCG-3’ shPOLE2). A non-silencing siRNA (5’- TTCTCCGAACGTGTCACGT -3’) was used as the negative control (shCrl). These plasmids were respectively cloned into above vectors. All the cells were seed into a six-well plates at 5 × 104 cells per well and incubated, respectively. Appropriate volumes of lentivirus were added to the cells according to the recommendation of manufacture, when cell fusion reached 70%.
Determination of knockdown rate
Quantitative real-time PCR (qRT-PCR) was used to examine knockdown rate of pole2 mRNA in cells infected lentivirus vectors. GAPDH gene was used as an internal control gene in qRT-PCR. The examinations were performed in triplicate per sample.
Immunohistochenmistry
The protein expression patterns of Pole2 were analyzed in 35 renal cell carcinoma tissues, and paired adjacent noncancerous tissues, and 100 formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded renal cancer tissue samples that obtained from patients who underwent operation between January 2013 and December 2015. According to a two-step protocol, rabbit polyclonal anti-human pole2 antibodies (1:200; Sigma) and visualized with secondary antibody (1:200; Beyotime) were used for staining in the sections (5μm). Positive cells were quantitatively calculated using Image-Pro Plus 6.0.
Western blot analysis
Whole-cell lysates were obtained as previous described,9 35μg of which separated on a SDS–PAGE gel, next, they were transferred to a nitrocellulose membrane and incubated with anti-human Pole2 (1:1000), AKT (1:1000), p-AKT (1:1000), mTOR (1:1000), p-mTOR (1:1000) and GAPDH (1:1000) overnight at 4 °C. The following day, the membranes were washed by trisbuffered saline and Tween-20 and incubated with a secondary anti-rabbit IgG antibody conjugated with horseradish peroxidase. Next, membranes were incubated with enhanced chemoluminescence and protein expression was visualized after exposure to X-ray film. GAPDH was used as internal control.
Cell proliferation assay
786O and ACHN cells, and the cells infected with pole2-shRNA lentivirus or NC lentivirus were collected, and rypsin-digested, when logarithmic growth phase presented, next, the cells resuspended in standard medium, and then seeded into 96-well plates at a density of 2,000 cells/well. The number of GFP fluorescence-positive cells was counted using a Celigo Cell Counting (Nexcelom) on five consecutive days. In addition, 20 µL of MTT (5 mg/mL in PBS) was added to each well of the plates to form formazan crystals by metabolically active cells, which were subsequently incubated in the incubator humidified with CO2 (5%) for 4 h at 37◦ C. Later, 100 µL of DMSO solution was added following removal of the MTT medium. The absorbance was measured at a wavelength of 490 nm with microplate reader (Tecan infinite). Triplicate experiments were done.
Cell cycle analysis
Above mentioned cells were washed twice with ice-cold phosphatebuffered saline (PBS), and fixed with 70% ice-cold ethanol for 1 h. The cells were washed with D-hank saline, then the cells were stained for 1 h with propidium iodide (Sigma-Aldrich, P4170) containing 10mg/ml RNase (Fermentas EN0531). Finally, the samples were analyzed using a flow cytometer (FACSCalibur, Becton Dickinson).
Cell apoptosis analysis
Above mentioned cells were washed twice with ice-cold phosphatebuffered saline (PBS), and were stained with Annexin V-APC (ebioscience, 88–8007) following manufacturer’s instructions and detected by a flow cytometer (FACS Calibur, Becton Dickinson).
Caspase 3/7 analysis
The cells were seeded into 96-well plates, and were cultured at 37°C in a humidified atmosphere containing 5% CO2 for 3-5 days, then 100 μL per well Caspase-Glo solution was added to the new 96-well plates that containing 1× 104 cells per well, which next were incubated at room temperature for 1-2 h. The intensity of signal was determined by Microplate Reader (Tecan infinite; M2009PR)
MTT assay
Cells (2 × 103) were seeded out in 96-well plates (Cornning) in a volume of 100 µL and cultivated for five days. Untreated cells were used as a negative control and cells infected with NC were used as a positive control. After this cultivation period, cells were washed once with PBS. Since second day of cultivation, the cells were incubated in 20 µL/well 10% MTT solution (5.0 mg/mL in PBS) in the medium for 4 h. SDS solution (1.0 g SDS in 10 mL 0.01 M HCl) was added to each well to release the purple-colored salt from the cells. After 24 h of incubation, UV-Vis absorption was measured at 490 nm as the reference wavelength using a microplate reader (Tecan infinite M2009PR).
Statistical analysis
Statistical analysis was performed using the SPSS16.0 software package. Survival curves were plotted using the Kaplan-Meier method. All values in the text and figures are expressed as the mean ± SD in the study. Chi-square tests and paired Wilcoxon tests were used for evaluating the study results. The association between pole2 expression and patients’ clinical-pathologic characteristics was compared using Fishe’s exact test. P-value < 0.05 was considered as statistical significance.