Abstract
BackgroundThough herbal medicines have been used for cancer prevention and treatment, their scientific evidences still remain unclear so far. Thus, complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) project has been actively executed to reveal the scientific evidences in the USA and other countries. In the present study, we elucidated antitumor mechanism of Chijongdan, an oriental prescription of Rhus verniciflua, processed Panax ginseng, Persicaria tinctoria and Realgar, that has been traditionally applied for cancer treatment in Korea.MethodsChijongdan was prepared with extracts of Rhus verniciflua, processed Panax ginseng, Persicaria tinctoria and processed Realgar. The cytotoxicity of Chijongdan was measured by MTT colorimetric assay. Cell cycle analysis was performed by FACS. Western blot was performed to see the apoptosis related proteins.ResultsChijongdan significantly exerted cytotoxicity in A549, H460 and H1299 non-small cell lung carcinoma (NSCLC) cells by MTT assay and also increased the number of ethidium homodimer positively stained cells in A549 NSCLC cells. Also, cell cycle analysis showed that Chijongdan increased sub-G1 population in a concentration dependent manner in A549 cells. In addition, Western blotting revealed that Chijongdan activated cleaved PARP, and caspase 9/3, while attenuated the expression of survival genes such as Bcl-2, Bcl-XL and survivin in A549 cells. Furthermore, Chijongdan suppressed the expression of ribosomal biogenesis related proteins such as upstream binding factor (UBF), Fibrillarin, NPM (B23) and Importin-7 (IPO7) and conversely pan-caspase inhibitor Z--VAD-FMK reversed the apoptotic ability of Chijongdan to cleave PARP and caspase 3 and attenuate the expression of UBF and Fibrillarin in A549 cells.ConclusionsThese findings suggest that Chijongdan induces apoptosis and inhibits ribosomal biogenesis proteins via caspase activation.
Highlights
Though herbal medicines have been used for cancer prevention and treatment, their scientific evidences still remain unclear so far
Chijongdan and its constituents exerted the cytotoxicity against human non-small cell lung cancer cells To evaluate the cytotoxic effect of Chijongdan and its constituents in human non-small cell lung carcinoma cells (NSCLC), we conducted MTT assay
A549, H460 and H1299 cells were treated with various concentrations (0, 6.25, 12.5, 25, 50, 100 or 200 μg/ml) of Chijongdan and its constituents such as Rhus verniciflua, processed Panax ginseng, Persicaria tinctoria and processed Realgar for 24 h and 48 h
Summary
Though herbal medicines have been used for cancer prevention and treatment, their scientific evidences still remain unclear so far. Called programmed cell death (PCD), is characterized by specific morphological features of cell shrinkage, nuclear condensation and fragmentation and membrane blebbing in the cells [3]. It usually includes two classical apoptotic pathways such as the extrinsic death receptor pathway and intrinsic mitochondrial pathway. Recently apoptosis is one of important targets in cancer therapy [4,5] and some herbal medicines are attractive for cancer prevention and therapy with little toxicity or combination supplement with anticancer agents [6,7,8].
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