Inhibited neoplastic phenotype by the c-Ha-ras antisense RNA

A 2.0 kb fragment DNA plasmid which expresses antisense to the upstream first exon of c-Ha-ras oncogene was transfected into Ha-ras transformed cell lines, GCM-3T3 and REF-4.3. The transfection leads to the inhibition of malignant behaviour, shown by decreasing of growth speed, colony forming ability on soft agar, tumorigenicity in nude mice and increasing of differentiation degree. In GCM-3T3 cells the lung metastasis frequency became much less (from 60% to 12.5%) after the transfection and the expression of ras oncogene product, and p21 protein was obviously decreased in the transfected cells. This work has first shown the inhibitory effect of antisense RNA on neoplastic behaviour in China.