Inhibitory effect of poncirin on viability of gastric cancer cells and underlying mechanism / 中国病理生理杂志

ABSTRACT

AIM:To explore the effect of poncirin on the growth of AGS gastric cancer cells and the underlying mechanism.METHODS:The effect of poncirin on AGS cell viability was measure by MTT assay.The cell cycle distribution and cell apoptosis were analyzed by flow cytometry.Nuclear staining with DAPI was used to reflect the morphological change of the AGS cells treated with poncirin.The protein levels of extrinsic apoptosis pathway-related proteins such as FasL,caspase-8,caspase-3 and PARP,and mitochondria-mediated intrinsic apoptosis pathway-associated proteins such as Bak,Bcl-xL,Bax and caspase-9 were determined by Western blot.RESULTS:Poncirin inhibited the viability of AGS gastric cancer cells in a time-and concentration-dependent manner (P ＜ 0.05).Poncirin induced accumulation of G1 DNA content and significantly increased total apoptosis in the AGS cells.Nuclear staining showed a dose-dependent increase in the number of apoptotic cells after treated with poncirin.The protein level of FasL was upregulated in a dose-dependent manner by treatment with poncirin.Poncirin significantly activated caspase-8 and caspase-3.Moreover,poncirin significantly induced the cleavage of PARP in a dose-dependent manner (P ＜ 0.05).In addition,the protein levels of Bcl-xL,Bax and Bak were unchanged after treated with different doses of poncirin.Furthermore,caspase-9 was not activated by poncirin treatment in the AGS cells.CONCLUSION:Poncirin has the anti-cancer effect via extrinsic apoptosis pathway to inhibit the growth of AGS gastric cancer cells,possibly making it a therapeutic agent for human gastric cancer treatment.