Pro-apoptotic and anti-adhesive effects of four African plant extracts on the breast cancer cell line MCF-7

BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine

Research Article

Juliane Kühn¹  Barbara Nebe¹  Nadja Engel¹  Abiodun Falodun²  Peter Langer³  Udo Kragl³ 

[1] Department of Cell Biology, University Medical Center Rostock, Schillingallee 69, 18057, Rostock, Germany;Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Benin, 300001, Benin City, Nigeria;Institute of Chemistry, University of Rostock, Albert-Einstein-Str. 3A, 18059, Rostock, Germany;

关键词: Traditional medicine;    Breast cancer;    Plant extraction;    Cell cycle;    Apoptosis;    Integrin;    Adhesion;    Anoikis;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1472-6882-14-334

 received in 2013-12-06, accepted in 2014-08-27,  发布年份 2014

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundJatropha curcas (JCP1), Pyrenacantha staudtii (PS), Picralima nitida (ZI) and Jatropha gossypifolia (JCP2) are plants used in the African folklore for the treatment of various cancers.MethodsThis study investigated the in vitro anticancer effects of the ethanol extracts against human epithelial MCF-7 breast cancer cells in a dose-dependent manner (1–50 μg/ml) by using cell cycle analysis, viability assay, annexin V/PI staining, TUNEL method and expression determination of apoptotic and adhesion relevant proteins. Adhesion processes were monitored by detachment via flow cytometry, β1-integrin expression and formation of the actin cytoskeleton.ResultsThe three extracts, termed PS, JCP1 and JCP2 at a concentration of 10 μg/ml induced cell death in MCF-7 breast cancer cells verified by high amounts of PI-positive cells in the cell cycle analysis, Annexin V/PI staining and DNA fragmentation measurements. In parallel cell detachment was accompanied by decreased β1- integrin expression and phosphorylation of the focal adhesion kinase at Tyr397. ZI extract was the exception by the increasing β1-integrin expression and strengthening the cortical actin cytoskeleton. However, all four plant extracts mediated strong anti-cancer properties with IC50 values between 23–38 μg/ml.ConclusionPS, JCP1 and JCP2 were found to be very active against MCF-7 cells by inducing anoikis and therefore possessing vast potential as medicinal drugs especially in estrogen receptor positive breast cancer treatment. ZI mediated their anti-cancer action by different signaling mechanisms which should be analyzed in future studies. Our results further supported the idea that medicinal plants can be promising sources of putative anticancer agents.

【 授权许可】

Unknown   
© Engel et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2014. This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.