Cordycepin augments the chemosensitivity of osteosarcoma to cisplatin by activating AMPK and suppressing the AKT signaling pathway

Cancer Cell International

Jun-Kai Chen¹  Ze-Xin Su¹  Jing-Nan Shen¹  Li-Wen Deng¹  Hong-Bo Li¹  Qing-Lin Jin¹  Gang Huang¹ 

[1] Department of Musculoskeletal Oncology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University, 510080, Guangzhou, China;Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Orthopedics and Traumatology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University, 510080, Guangzhou, China;

关键词: Osteosarcoma;    Cordycepin;    Cisplatin;    AMPK;    AKT;   

DOI  :  10.1186/s12935-021-02411-y

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundOsteosarcoma is the most common primary bone tumor in children and adolescents. However, some patients with osteosarcoma develop resistance to chemotherapy, leading to a poor clinical prognosis. Hence, effective therapeutic agents that can improve the response to chemotherapy drugs to improve the prognosis of patients with osteosarcoma are urgently needed. Cordycepin has recently emerged as a promising antitumor drug candidate. This study aims to explore the effect of cordycepin in suppressing osteosarcoma in vivo and in vitro and the synergistic effect of cordycepin combined with cisplatin and to demonstrate the underlying molecular mechanism.MethodsCCK-8 assay was performed to investigate the inhibition effect of cordycepin combined with cisplatin in osteosarcoma cell lines. The colony formation and invasion abilities were measured by colony formation assay and Transwell assay. Osteosarcoma cells apoptosis was detected by flow cytometry. Western blot analysis were used to detect the expression of cell apoptosis-related proteins and AMPK and AKT/mTOR signaling pathway-related proteins. Finally, we performed the in vivo animal model to further explore whether cordycepin and cisplatin exert synergistic antitumor effects.ResultsNotably, we found that treatment with cordycepin inhibited cell proliferation, invasion, and induced apoptosis in osteosarcoma cells in vitro and in vivo. Moreover, the combination of cordycepin and cisplatin led to marked inhibition of osteosarcoma cell proliferation and invasion and promoted osteosarcoma cell apoptosis in vitro and in vivo. Mechanistically, we demonstrated that cordycepin enhanced the sensitivity of osteosarcoma cells to cisplatin by activating AMPK and inhibiting the AKT/mTOR signaling pathway.ConclusionsIn brief, this study provides comprehensive evidence that cordycepin inhibits osteosarcoma cell growth and invasion and induces osteosarcoma cell apoptosis by activating AMPK and inhibiting the AKT/mTOR signaling pathway and enhances the sensitivity of osteosarcoma cells to cisplatin, suggesting that cordycepin is a promising treatment for osteosarcoma.

【 授权许可】

CC BY