Effectiveness of AFP-miRNA system for HCC tissue-specific RNAi.

<p>(A) Construction of recombinant lentiviral vectors contained miRNA targeting Beclin 1 gene driven by AFP promoter or CMV promoter (AFP-miRNA and CMV-miRNA). (B) The AFP-miRNA system could efficiently infected HCC cells (more than 99%), as exemplified by HCCLM3 cells. (C) Q-PCR and western blot analysis showed that the AFP-miRNA system could downregulate target gene (Beclin 1) of HCC cells but required high titer (MOI>80), as compared with positive control CMV-miRNA. (D) Cell viability assay showed that the high titer required for effective AFP-miRNA-mediated RNAi was cytotoxic to target HCC cells, as exemplified by HCCLM3 and HepG2 cells.