Up-regulation of the human prolactin receptor (hPRLR) has been implicated in aberrant signaling that may induce abnormal proliferation of breast epithelium. In this study, we evaluated the inhibition of cell proliferation by small-interfering RNA (siRNA) targeting of hPRLR, as well as the anti-tumor efficacy of this treatment on the T-47D breast cancer cell line. The hPRLR-targeted siRNA were chemically synthesized and constructed in a specific siRNA expression vector (pSilencer 2.0), the expression of hPRLR was analyzed by real-time quantitative PCR and Western blot analysis, growth inhibition was measured by MTT assay, and cell cycle analysis was carried out to determine the effect of siRNA treatment on T-47D cells. Our results indicate that the hPRLR siRNA plasmid markedly reduced PRLR gene expression, decreased the growth rate and reduced the frequency of T-47D cells in the G2/M phase, while significantly increasing cells in G0/G1. In summary, RNAi silencing of hPRLR gene expression specifically inhibited the proliferation of T-47D breast cancer cells. This implies that RNAi have therapeutic potential as a treatment for breast cancer by targeting the overexpression of hPRLR, suggesting that this gene product might be a potential therapeutic target.

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