Objective: To study the role of the inhibitor of apoptosis protein (IAP), survivin, in cisplatin-induced head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) cell death.
Design: Parental and cisplatin-resistant HNSCC cells were evaluated for expression of survivin. The HNSCC cells were then transduced with lentiviral small interfering RNA (siRNA) expression vectors developed to express either a survivin-specific siRNA or a scrambled control siRNA. Infected cells were sorted using a green fluorescent protein marker to enrich for highly transduced cells. Cell viability was measured after a 48-hour exposure to cisplatin using trypan blue exclusion assays.