Cucurbitacin D Inhibits NF-κB Activation, Thereby Inducing Apoptosis and Suppressing Tumor Growth

Abstract

Recently, more and more researchers are investigating the effectiveness of using traditional Chinese medicine as a treatment to treat cancer. This work investigates the Cucurbitacin D, an active component found in the traditional Chinese medicine Trichosanthes kirilowii tuber. Its abilities to inhibit NF-κB activation and to induce apoptosis are studied. This work also examines the potential ability of Cucurbitacin D to inhibit TNF-induced NF-κB activation, to inhibit TNF-dependent IκBα degradation and TNF-dependent IκBα phosphorylation, to repress the TNF-induced NF-κB-dependent reporter gene expression, to potentiate the apoptosis effect, to down regulates the expression of anti-apoptotic proteins regulated by the NF-κB pathway, and to inhibits the expression of gene products involved in cell proliferation using methods such as the EMSA, western blotting, NF-κB-dependent reporter gene expression assay, TUNEL assay, live and dead assay, and the MTT assay. There are several possible results that can be derived from each testing. In this work, the final conclusion is that Cucurbitacin D could have the potential ability to inhibit NF-kB activation and therefore to induce apoptosis, so it could have the potential ability to reduce cancer cell progression.