Effecacy of Biejia (Carapax Trionycis) and Ezhu (Rhizoma Curcumae Phaeocaulis) couplet medicine on epithelial-mesenchymal transition, invasion and migration of MDA-MB-231 triple negative breast cancer cells via PI3K/Akt/mTOR signaling pathway.

Abstract

To investigate the efficacy of Biejia (Carapax Trionycis) and Ezhu (Rhizoma Curcumae Phaeocaulis) couplet medicine on epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT), invasion and migration of MDA-MB-231 triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) cells based on PI3K/Akt/mTOR signaling pathway. MDA-MB-231 cells were treated with different medicated serum as Biejia-, Ezhu-, Biejia-Ezhu (BJ-, EZ-, BJ-EZ-) groups, intervened with no drug rat serum and paclitaxel with final concentration of 33 nM (IC50) as negative and positive control (NC and PC) groups. CCK-8 assay, scratch test, and Transwell assay were used to examine cell proliferation, invasion, and migration. The expression of E-cadherin, N-cadherin, Vimentin, MMP-2, MMP-9, PI3K, Akt, p-Akt, mTOR, and p-mTOR was determined by Western blot, and the mRNA expression of PI3K, Akt and mTOR was determined by real-time polymerase chain reaction. BJ-EZ group inhibited proliferation after 24, 48, and 72 h compared with the NC group (P < 0.05, < 0.01 or < 0.001) and reduced the invasion and migration of MDA-MB-231 cells (P < 0.01 or < 0.001). In addition, BJ-EZ group upregulated the expression of E-cadherin, downregulated the expression of N-cadherin, Vimentin, MMP-2, and MMP-9 (P < 0.05, P < 0.01 or P < 0.001), and inhibited the mRNA and protein expression of PI3K, Akt (p-Akt), mTOR (p-mTOR) (P < 0.05, < 0.01 or < 0.001). Biejia (Carapax Trionycis) and Ezhu (Rhizoma Curcumae Phaeocaulis) couplet medicine can inhibit the proliferation, invasion, migration and EMT of MDA-MB-231 cells through PI3K/Akt/mTOR signaling pathway, and the effect is better than that of Biejia (Carapax Trionycis) or Ezhu (Rhizoma Curcumae Phaeocaulis) alone.