Abstract 14: Anticancer activities of terpenoid compounds isolated from the plant centipeda minma against nasopharyngeal carcinoma cells

Abstract

Abstract Nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) is one of common cancers throughout south-east Asia, southern China and other regions. Radiotherapy and chemotherapy are the standard treatments for NPC with severe adverse effects, multi-drug resistance, and insensitivity to advanced NPC. Complementary and novel treatments for NPC gain considerable interest around the world. The medicinal plant Centipeda minma is traditionally used in China for the treatment of various nasal diseases such as allergy, rhinitis, sinusitis and nasopharyngeal carcinoma. In the current study, we studied the anticancer potential of an ethanol extract (CME) and 3 pure sesquiterpenoids (A1, A2, A3) extracts from Centipeda minma against NPC cells in vitro and some underlying mechanisms of actions. The NPC cell lines CNE-1 and CNE-2 cells were treated with either CME or 3 pure compounds (A1, A2, A3). Proliferation of NPC cells was inhibited in a concentration- and time-dependent manner. For 48 h treatment, the IC50 values were 41.57 to 24.98 μg/mL for CME, and 2.3 to 7.5 μM for A1 to A3. While these extracts showed no appreciable effect on normal human LO2 hepatocytes, significant numbers of NPC cells underwent apoptotic morphological changes following treatments. Cytometric analysis demonstrated that treatments with CME and compounds results in NPC cell cycle arrest at the G2/M phase and eventually apoptosis in a concentration and time-dependent manner. Western blot analysis showed that these extracts could down-regulate Bcl-2 expression, up-regulate Bax expression and caspase-8, 9, 3 activities. In addition, the potential anti-NPC actions might be also associated with the marked inhibition of multiple signal transduction pathways including EGFR, VEGFR, HER2, FGFR, IGF-1R, PI3K/AKT/mTOR, MAP/ERK and Jan/Stat3 pathways. In summary, the Centipeda minma extract and terpenoids are potential apoptosis inducing agents to kill NPC cells and may be promising anti-cancer drug leads against nasopharyngeal carcinoma. The exact mechanism of actions remains further study. Note: This abstract was not presented at the meeting. Citation Format: Bei-bei Liu, Kui-yuan Zhu, Chi-on Chan, Ling-Hua Zhang, Daniel Kam-Wah Mok, Si-bao Chen. Anticancer activities of terpenoid compounds isolated from the plant centipeda minma against nasopharyngeal carcinoma cells [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2017; 2017 Apr 1-5; Washington, DC. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2017;77(13 Suppl):Abstract nr 14. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2017-14