Effect of naringenin on natural killer cell cytotoxicity against hepatocellular carcinoma cells in vitro and its mechanism / 临床肝胆病杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To investigate the effect of naringenin on the killing rate of natural killer (NK) cells and related mechanism by amplification of human peripheral blood mononuclear cells into NK cells in vitro and co-culture with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) CLC5 cells at a ratio of 1∶ 1. Methods A lymphocyte separation medium was used to isolate human peripheral blood mononuclear cells, which were induced with recombinant human interleukin-2 in vitro to culture NK cells. CCK-8 assay was used to measure the proliferation of HCC cells after human HCC cells were treated with naringenin (0, 3.125, 6.25, 12.5, 25, and 50 μmol/L) for 0, 24, and 48 hours, and after human NK cells were treated with different concentrations of naringenin for 24 hours, CCK-8 assay was used to measure the proliferation of NK cells. CellTiter-LumiTM was used to measure the killing rate of NK cells after the NK-HCC cell co-culture system at the ratio of 1∶ 1 was treated with naringenin for 24 hours. Quantitative real-time PCR was used to measure the gene expression of the activating receptor NKG2D in NK cells and NKG2D ligands in HCC cells. A one-way analysis of variance was used for comparison of continuous data between multiple groups, and the least significant difference t -test was used for further comparison between two groups. Results After being induced and cultured by recombinant human interleukin-2, NK cells were amplified to 82.33%±0.70% of human peripheral blood mononuclear cells. After naringenin treatment for 24 hours, there was no significant difference in the proliferation rate of HCC CLC5 cells between all mass concentration groups (all P > 0.05), and in the 25 and 50 μmol/L mass concentration groups, naringenin significantly promoted the proliferation of NK cells (both P 0.05); it significantly upregulated the expression of the NKG2D ligands such as ULBP1 and ULBP3 in HCC cells (all P < 0.001). Conclusion Naringenin may increase the killing activity of NK cells by upregulating the expression of NKG2D ligands in HCC cells.