Hederagenin from the leaves of ivy (Hedera helix L.) induces apoptosis in human LoVo colon cells through the mitochondrial pathway

BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine

Research Article

Jian Wu¹  Rui-Ping Wang¹  Jin-Yong Zhou¹  Bao-Xin-Zi Liu¹  Xi Zou¹  Yu Li¹  Jun-Fei Gu²  Liang Feng²  Xiao-Bin Jia²  Jia-Rui Yuan²  Bing-Jie Zhao² 

[1] Department of Oncology, Jiangsu Province Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine, The Affiliated Hospital of Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine, 210029, Nanjing, P. R., China;Key Laboratory of New Drug Delivery Systems of Chinese Meteria Medica, Jiangsu Provincial Academy of Chinese Medicine, 210028, Jiangsu, NanjingP. R., China;

关键词: Hederagenin;    Apoptosi;    Mitochondrial pathway;    Colon cancer;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1472-6882-14-412

 received in 2013-11-15, accepted in 2014-10-15,  发布年份 2014

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundColorectal cancer has become one of the leading cause of cancer morbidity and mortality throughout world. Hederagenin, a derivative of oleanolic acid isolated from the leaves of ivy (Hedera helix L.), has been shown to have potential anti-tumor activity. The study was conducted to evaluate whether hederagenin could induce apoptosis of human colon cancer LoVo cells and explore the possible mechanism.MethodsMTT assay was used for evaluating cell viability while Annexin V-FITC/PI assay and Hoechst 33342 nuclear stainining were used for the determination of apoptosis and mitochondrial membrane potential. DCFH-DA fluorescence staining and flow cytometry were used to measure ROS generation. Real-time PCR and western blot analysis were performed for apoptosis-related protein expressions.ResultsMTT assay showed that hederagenin could significantly inhibit the viability of LoVo cells in a concentration-dependent and time-dependent manner by IC50 of 1.39 μM at 24 h and 1.17 μM at 48 h. The apoptosis ratio was significantly increased to 32.46% and 81.78% by the induction of hederagenin (1 and 2 μM) in Annexin V-FITC/PI assay. Hederagenin could also induce the nuclear changes characteristic of apoptosis by Hoechst 33342 nuclear stainining under fluorescence microscopy. DCFH-DA fluorescence staining and flow cytometry showed that hederagenin could increase significantly ROS generation in LoVo cells. Real-time PCR showed that hederagenin induced the up-regulation of Bax and down-regulation of Bcl-2, Bcl-xL and Survivin. Western blotting analysis showed that hederagenin decreased the expressions of apoptosis-associated proteins Bcl-2, procaspase-9, procaspase-3, and polyADP- ribosepolymerase (PARP) were increased, while the expressions of Bax, caspase-3, caspase-9 were increased. However, there was no significant change on caspase-8.ConclusionsThese results indicated that the disruption of mitochondrial membrane potential might contribute to the apoptosis of hederagenin in LoVo cells. Our findings suggested that hederagenin might be a promising therapeutic candidate for human colon cancer.

【 授权许可】

Unknown   
© Liu 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.