ABSTRACT
OBJECTIVE: To investigate the potential anticancer effect of combretastatin A4 liposomes (SSL-CA4) in destruction of vascular mimicry (VM) in MDA-MB-231 breast cancer cells in vitro. METHODS: The in vitro inhibitory effect and blocking woundhealing effect of SSL-CA4 were investigated. The VM destruction of SSL-CA4 was evaluated in three dimensional matrigel culture model in MDA-MB-231 cells. The in vitro inhibitory test showed that the maxium inhibition ratio of SSL-CA4 on MDA-MB-231 cells was close to 50%. SSL-CA4 blocked the wound-healing of MDA-MB-231 cells, which was similar to free CA4. RESULTS: SSL-CA4 could inhibit the formation of VM in vitro via inhibition on the VM channel indicators including hypoxia-inducible factor (HIF-α), vascular endothelial- cadherin (VE-Cad), and matrix metallopeptidases (MMP-2). The inhibition on indicators of SSL-CA4 was significantly higher than CA4 treatment groups (P <0.05). CONCLUSION: SSL-CA4 has significant anticancer activity via inhibition of VM in MDA-MB-231 cell line.