Abstract
Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the most prevalent malignancies, which ranks the third leading cause of cancer-related death worldwide. The screening of anti-HCC drug with high efficiency and low toxicity from traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) has attracted more and more attention. As a TCM, Chinese dragon’s blood has been used for the treatment of cardiovascular illness, gynecological illness, skin disorder, otorhinolaryngological illness, and diabetes mellitus complications for many years. However, the anti-tumor effect and underlying mechanisms of Chinese dragon’s blood remain ill-defined. Herein we have revealed that Chinese dragon’s blood EtOAc extract (CDBEE) obviously suppressed the growth of human hepatoma HepG2 and SK-HEP-1 cells. Moreover, CDBEE inhibited the migration and invasion of HepG2 and SK-HEP-1 cells. Additionally, CDBEE displayed good in vitro anti-angiogenic activity. Importantly, CDBEE treatment significantly blunted the oncogenic capability of HepG2 cells in nude mice. Mechanistically, CDBEE inhibited Smad3 expression in human hepatoma cells and tumor tissues from nude mice. Using RNA interference, we demonstrated that CDBEE exerted anti-hepatoma activity partially through down-regulation of Smad3, one of major members in TGF-β/Smad signaling pathway. Therefore, CDBEE may be a promising candidate drug for HCC treatment, especially for liver cancer with aberrant TGF-β/Smad signaling pathway.
Highlights
Cancer is the second leading cause of death worldwide and seriously threatens human health (Bray et al, 2018)
We demonstrated that Chinese dragon’s blood EtOAc extract (CDBEE) suppressed the growth and metastasis of human hepatoma HepG2 and SK-HEP-1 cells in vitro, and showed good anti-angiogenic activity
We investigated the effect of CDBEE on apoptosis of human hepatoma cells by using Hoechst staining assay and flow cytometry analysis
Summary
Cancer is the second leading cause of death worldwide and seriously threatens human health (Bray et al, 2018). Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the most common malignant tumors in the world, which ranks the third in cancer mortality (Ghouri et al, 2017). The anti-tumor effects of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) has attracted increasing attention in recent years (Guo et al, 2015b; Xu et al, 2015; Xiang et al, 2019). As a TCM, Chinese dragon’s blood has been used for the treatment of several types of diseases in China for many years, including cardiovascular illness, gynecological illness, skin disorder, otorhinolaryngological illness, and diabetes mellitus complications (Yuan et al, 2013). It has been reported that the 75% ethanol extract from Chinese dragon’s blood suppressed cell proliferation and promoted apoptosis in human cholangiocarcinoma cells (Wen et al, 2016)
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