Objective      To determine the effects of exogenous metal-responsive transcription factor-1 (MTF-1) on the cell proliferation

apoptosis

cell cycle and migration in human esophageal carcinoma EC109 cells.       Methods      The CDS fragment of MTF-1 was cloned into the pCDNA3.1 vector to construct recombinant vector pcDNA3.1-MTF-1. And then pcDNA3.1-MTF-1 and pcDNA3.1 (control) were transferred into EC109 cells separately.  The mRNA and protein expression levels of MTF-1 were detected by RT-PCR and Western blotting. CCK8 assa

y was used to detect the effect of MTF-1 overexpression on EC109 cell proliferation and the effects on apoptosis and cell cycle were analyzed by flow cytometry. Transwell chamber assay was used to examine the migration potential of the EC109 cells.       Results      Compared with pcDNA3.1 group

pcDNA3.1-MTF-1 group expressed high-level exogenous MTF-1 and the proliferation of EC109 cells were significantly increased  in 48 to 96 h (

P

0.01). After pcDNA3.1-MTF-1 transfection for 48 h

apoptosis of EC109 cells was significantly inhibited (

P

0.05). Meanwhile

the percentage of EC109 cells in G

1

phase was decreased (

P

0.01) and that in S phase was increased significantly (

P

0.01) as compared to the control group. The cell migration abilities didn’t show significant difference between the 2 groups.       Conclusion      Exogenous MTF-1 stimulates the proliferation of EC109 cells by inhibiting apoptosis and promoting G

1

/S transition

while does not affect migration of EC109 cells obviously.