Abstract:Objective To discuss the effect of ubiquitin specifc protease 22 (USP22) on the growth of colorectal cancer cells. Methods The expression of USP22 in colorectal cancer tissue was detected by immunofluorescence. The expression of USP22 in the three kinds of colorectal cancer cells (HCT-116, SW480, HT-29) were detected by western blotting analysis to select the highest expressed cell line. The unique siRNA for USP22 gene and the negative control siRNA were designed and produced. After transfection, the efficiency of siRNA was detected by western blotting analysis. The cell proliferation was tested by MTT analysis. The cell cycle and apoptosis were tested by flow cytometry. The altered expressions of cell cycle related genes (CyclinB1, p21, p53, and CDK2) were detected by western blotting. Results The results of immunofluorescence showed that the expression of USP22 in cancer tissue was higher than in para-carcinoma tissue (P?0.05). With the highest USP22 expression of SW480 cells selected to further experiment, the western blotting results showed that the expression of USP22 was significantly reduced by siRNA transfection (P?0.05). Silencing USP22 could significantly suppress the proliferation of SW480 cells, and induce them to arrest during the G0/G1 in order to increasing apoptosis rate (P?0.05) and inhibiting cell proliferation (P?0.05). Meanwhile, compared to negative control group, the expression of CyclinB1 and CDK2 was significantly decreased (P?0.05), and the expression of p21 and p53 was significantly increased (P?0.05). Conclusions Silencing USP22 could suppress the proliferation of colorectal cancer cells, and the mechanism might relate to cell cycle suppression and cell apoptosis promotion.