Effect of plumbagin on invasion and apoptosis of human hepatocellular carcinoma cell line HepG2 / 中国药理学通报

ABSTRACT

Aim To investigate the effect of plumbagin on invasion and apoptosis of human hepatocellular car-cinoma ( HepG2 ) . Methods HepG2 cells were cul-tured in vitro with different concentrations of plumba-gin, then cell proliferation was observed by MTT as-say; cell invasion was observed by transwell invasion assay; cell apoptosis was detected by flow cytometry, and the protein expression of Bax, Bcl-2 was detected by immunocytochemistry. Results MTT results showed that plumbagin could significantly inhibit cell proliferation compared with the control group, and in a dose-dependent manner ( P ( P < 0. 01 ) . Flow cytometry showed that apoptosis rate was significantly higher in 4 , 8 μmol · L-1 group of plumbagin compared with that of the control group ( P<0. 01 ) . Immunocytochemistry showed that, with the increasing concentration of plumbagin, Bax protein expression increased, Bcl-2 protein expression was de-creased, both in a dose-dependent manner ( P <0. 01 ) . Conclusion Plumbagin can inhibit HepG2 cell proliferation and accelerate apoptosis of HepG2 cells, but also has the ability to inhibit HepG2 cell in-vasion.