Down-regulation of Pkd2 by siRNAs suppresses cell-cell adhesion in the mouse melanoma cells

The Pkd2 gene encodes an integral protein (~130 kDa), named polycystin-2 (PC-2). PC-2 is mainly involved in autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease. Recently, polycystin-1/polycystin-2 complex has been shown to act as an adhesion complex mediating or regulating cell-cell or cell-matrix adhesion, suggesting that PC-2 may play a role in cell-cell/cell-matrix interactions. Here, we knocked down the expression of Pkd2 gene with small interfering RNAs (siRNAs) in the mouse melanoma cells (B16 cells), indicating that the cells transfected with the targeted siRNAs significantly suppressed cell-cell adhesion, but not cell-matrix adhesion, compared to the cells transfected with non-targeted control (NC) siRNA. This study provides the first directly functional evidence that PC-2 mediates cell-cell adhesion. Furthermore, we demonstrated that PC-2 modulated cell-cell adhesion may be, at least partially, associated with E-cadherin. Collectively, these findings for the first time showed that PC-2 may mediate cell-cell adhesion, at least partially, through E-cadherin.