Abstract
BackgroundColon cancer is a malignant gastrointestinal tumour with high incidence, mortality and metastasis rates worldwide. Aloe-emodin is a monomer compound derived from hydroxyanthraquinone. Aloe-emodin produces a wide range of antitumour effects and is produced by rhubarb, aloe and other herbs. However, the mechanism by which aloe-emodin influences colon cancer is still unclear. We hope these findings will lead to the development of a new therapeutic strategy for the treatment of colon cancer in the clinic.MethodsWe identified the overlapping targets of aloe-emodin and colon cancer and performed protein–protein interaction (PPI), Gene Ontology (GO), and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathway analyses. In addition, we selected apoptosis pathways for experimental verification with cell viability, cell proliferation, caspase-3 activity, DAPI staining, cell cycle and western blotting analyses to evaluate the apoptotic effect of aloe-emodin on colon cancer cells.ResultsThe MTT assay and cell colony formation assay showed that aloe-emodin inhibited cell proliferation. DAPI staining confirmed that aloe-emodin induced apoptosis. Aloe-emodin upregulated the protein level of Bax and decreased the expression of Bcl-2, which activates caspase-3 and caspase-9. Furthermore, the protein expression level of cytochrome C increased in a time-dependent manner in the cytoplasm but decreased in a time-dependent manner in the mitochondria.ConclusionThese results indicate that aloe-emodin may induce the apoptosis of human colon cancer cells through mitochondria-related pathways.
Highlights
Colon cancer is a malignant gastrointestinal tumour with high incidence, mortality and metastasis rates worldwide
These results indicate that aloe-emodin may induce the apoptosis of human colon cancer cells through mitochondria-related pathways
Chemical structure optimization and ADME evaluation The structural information of aloe-emodin was obtained from PubChem (Fig. 1), and the relevant ADME information was obtained from Traditional Chinese Medicine Systems Pharmacology (TCMSP)
Summary
Colon cancer is a malignant gastrointestinal tumour with high incidence, mortality and metastasis rates worldwide. The mechanism by which aloe-emodin influences colon cancer is still unclear. We hope these findings will lead to the development of a new therapeutic strategy for the treatment of colon cancer in the clinic. Studies have shown that aloe-emodin can induce the apoptosis of cervical cancer cells, and this effect is related to HPV E6, E7 and glucose metabolism [11]. The similar natural active anthraquinone derivative emodin induces cell death by promoting the cell cycle arrest and apoptosis of human LS1034 colon cancer cells in vitro and in vivo [14]. The mechanism by which aloe-emodin affects human colon cancer cells is unclear
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