Abstract:Our previous data shown that the Tissue inhibitor of metalloproteinases-1 (TIMP-1) was down-regulated in brain of fetus with Down's syndrome (DS), compared with normal. To understand the role of TIMP-1 down-regulated in DS encephalopathy, the effect of TIMP-1 gene silence on the proliferation and apoptosis was investigated in SH-SY5Y cells. After transfected with TIMP-1-shRNAs, SH-SY5Y-TIMP-1-shRNA cells were selected by puromycin and validated with Real-time PCR and Western blot. The expression of TIMP-1 mRNA and protein was significantly down-regulated by TIMP-1-shRNAs (almost 100%) in SH-SY5Y cells. Using such SH-SY5Y-TIMP-1-shRNA cell models, we found that TIMP-1 Gene silence impair the proliferation potential (MTT) and induce apoptosis (Fluorescence microscope and Flow cytometry) of SH-SY5Y cells. In summary, TIMP-1 gene silence can effectively inpair the proliferation and induce apoptosis of SH-SY5Y cells, which may be the way TIMP-1 gene down-regulated involved in the pathogenesis of DS.