Effect of bitter melon extract on cell survival and cell division markers in human metastatic breast cancer cells.

Abstract

Introduction: Bitter melon extract (BME) is known to exhibit cytotoxic effects on breast cancer cells (MCF-7). However, the molecular mechanisms by which BME exerts cytotoxic effects are not established. Aims: We aimed to investigate if BME exerts cytotoxic effects on MCF-7 cells via inhibiting cell division and cell proliferation pathways. We hypothesized that BME inhibits proliferation of MCF-7 cells by decreasing activities of mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAP kinase) & cyclins. The MAP kinase and cylcins play critical roles in mitotic cell division and cell survival respectively. Methods: Fresh bitter melons were purchased from an Asian grocery store and the extract (BME) was extracted, centrifuged, and filter sterilized. The MCF-7 cells were cultured in DMEM medium with 1% BME (v/v). After culturing cells for 48 hours, pictures of cultures were taken to confirm cytotoxic effects on cells. In our earlier experiments, BME induced decrease in cell viability was also confirmed using Trypan blue exclusion and MTT assays. The cells were harvested and changes in the protein expression of Cyclin B1 and phosphorylated MAP kinase (P42/44, which is also known as Erk 1/2) were determined using anti-Cyclin B1 and anti- Phospho- Thr202/Tyr204 Erk1/2 antibodies in the western blotting. Results & Discussion: BME exerted cytotoxic effects on MCF-cells (N=4). BME almost completely wiped out the expression of cyclin B1 protein and phospho-Erk 1/2 (N=3 with duplicate gels). However, total Erk and GAPDH protein expressions were not affected by the BME treatment (N=3).The data together supports our hypothesis. In the future, we will be running more sets of experiments to confirm our findings. FRD-MUCOM. All authors contributed equally to this work. This is the full abstract presented at the American Physiology Summit 2023 meeting and is only available in HTML format. There are no additional versions or additional content available for this abstract. Physiology was not involved in the peer review process.