RESUMO
Aim To study the mechanism of cucurb-itacin E ( CuE )-induced autophagy in HeLa cells. Methods Improved MTT assay was adopted to meas-ure the effect of CuE on cell proliferation. Western blot was used to determine the phosphorylation levels of downstream signaling proteins of mTORC1 and the ex-pression of autophagy associated proteins. ResultsCuE inhibited the proliferation of HeLa cells in a dose-dependent manner, and the 24-h IC50 of CuE was 4. 01μmol· L-1 . CuE significantly inhibited the phospho-rylation of p70 S6 K in a time-and dose-dependent man-ner as evidenced by decreased phosphorylation levels of the mTORC1 substrate. Meanwhile, the expression of LC3-II, a marker for autophagosome formation, was elevated by CuE treatment, and was further increased in the presence of chloroquine. Furthermore, CuE re-duced the levels of p62/SQSTM1 . These results indi-cated that CuE induced autophagy in HeLa cells. The decreased levels of phosphorylated ULK1 S757 were posi-tively correlated with autophagy induction in HeLa cells. Conclusion CuE is likely to induce autophagy through inhibiting mTORC1 activity.