Abstract
BackgroundGermacrone is one of the natural bioactive compounds found in Rhizoma curcuma essential oils. In this study, the potential anti-cancer effect of germacrone in gastric cancer cell line BGC823 was investigated.MethodsThe cell viability and proliferative activity were assessed, and cell cycle analysis was also performed. Hoechst 33258 and Annexin V/PI double staining was used for detection of cell apoptosis. Protein profiles of cell cycle-related and apoptosis-related proteins were assessed.ResultsMTT assay revealed that germacrone had marked cytotoxicity on BGC823 cells. Germacrone induced cell cycle arrest in the G2/M phase via remarkably decreased expression levels of cyclin B1, cdc 2 and cdc 25c. In addition, the treatment with germacrone induced caspase-3 activity and PARP cleavage. These findings demonstrated the effects of germacrone on inhibiting cell proliferation through induction of G2/M phase cell cycle arrest and promotion of cell apoptosis. It also indicated that germacrone functioned through modulations of cell cycle-associated protein expression and mitochondria-mediated apoptosis.ConclusionThese findings will be valuable as the molecular basis for the germacrone-mediated anti-cancer effect against gastric cancer.
Highlights
Germacrone is one of the natural bioactive compounds found in Rhizoma curcuma essential oils
Germacrone inhibits cell proliferation and viability of BGC823 cells The changes caused by germacrone treatment on BGC823 cell morphology was observed under an optical microscopy at 200x magnification
Compared with the control group, in which cells without germacrone treatment exhibited normal morphology with well-shaped and orderly arrangement, the germacrone-treated cells (24 h) exhibited obvious morphological changes including shrunk, unclear shape, nuclear condensation, fewer number and disorderly arrangement of cells (Fig. 1B). All these morphological changes that are indicative of cell apoptotic death were observed with 12 h of treatment and became more remarkable as the increasing of germacrone concentration (20, 40, 60 and 80 μM) and treatment time (12, 24, 48 and 72 h)
Summary
Germacrone is one of the natural bioactive compounds found in Rhizoma curcuma essential oils. Many essential oils of Rhizoma curcuma are the principal bioactive constituents that have anti-inflammatory and anti-tumor properties [7, 8]. Studies on the biological activities of germacrone have demonstrated that it possesses significant protective effects including anti-bacterial, antifungal, antifeedant, depressant, choleretic, antitussive and vasodilator activities [11,12,13,14]. These findings lead to the hypothesis in this study that germacrone might be involved in anti-tumor effect in human gastric cancer
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