Abstract: Objective To investigate the effect of β4 integrin gene silencing on the proliferation of human lung carcinoma variant cell line H460SM was investigated in vitro to further provide new targets for early diagnosis and treatment of non-small cell lung cancer. Methods β4 integrin gene expression was detected by quantitative reverse transcriptase PCR,and the cellular morphology was identified by microscope.Tumor cells growth was detected by MTS assay in vitro.Furthermore,the changes of cell cycle and apoptosis were analyzed by flow cytometry. Results Compared with negative control of shRNA-transduced H460SM cells(H460SM-NS),β4 integrin gene expressions in two different H460SM cells with integrin β4-specific shRNA(H460SM68 and H460SM71) were statistically down-regulated (P<0.01).The growth rates of H460SM cells with stably expressing integrin β4-specific shRNA significantly were decreased compared with negative control(P<0.05).Knockdown of β4 integrin by two different shRNAs led to significantly increase in apoptotic rate as compared with negative control(P<0.01).The proportion of H460SM cells with integrin β4-specific shRNA in the G₀/G₁ phase was significantly higher than that of negative control,suggesting that the cell proliferation was inhibited as blocking at G1/S phase(P<0.05).PI value of H460SM cells with integrin β4-specific shRNA was also lower than that of negative control(P<0.05). Conclusion Knockdown of β4 integrin expression in non-small cell lung cancer cells could inhibit in vitro cell proliferation.Furthermore,β4 integrin shRNA could induced cell apoptosis in H460SM cells.The possible mechanism of H460SM cell growth inhibition resulted from β4 integrin might be related to cell cycle arrest.