The nucleosome binding protein 1 promotes the growth of gastric cancer cells

Nucleosome binding protein 1 (NSBP1) is identified as a new member of HMGN family and is abnormally overexpressed in a variety of tumors. However, it remains unclear whether NSBP1 is overexpressed and promotes gastric cancer. In this study we employed RNAi mediated knockdown of NSBP1 to investigate potential oncogenic role of NSBP1 in gastric cancer. In BGC823 and SGC7901 gastric cancer cell lines, we showed that NSBP1 knockdown decreased cell proliferation while increased apoptosis in vitro. Western blot analysis showed that NSBP1 knockdown decreased the levels of anti-apoptotic protein Bcl-2 while increased the levels of pro-apoptotic protein Bax. In addition, NSBP1 knockdown inhibited the growth and increased the apoptosis of SGC7901 cells xenografted in nude mice. In conclusion, this study provides the first evidence that NSBP1 enhances the proliferation while inhibits the apoptosis of gastric cancer cells, and this is related to the regulation of the expression of apoptosis related proteins by NSBP1. These data suggest that NSBP1 plays oncogenic role in gastric cancer.