Abstract
Development of treatment resistance and lack of specificity are common problems in cancer chemotherapy, resulting in diverse and negative side effects. Emerging studies have shown that certain anti-microbial peptides (AMPs) have a destructive effect on cancer cells but no effect on normal eukaryotic cells. We isolated a cationic antimicrobial peptide--Cecropin B from silk worms infected with staphylococcus aureus and investigated its effects on breast cancer growth in vitro and in vivo. Treatment with Cecropin B induced cell death of murine breast cancer cells but not of normal nonmalignant cells. Cecropin B inhibited cancer cell proliferation as compared with control. Cecropin B treatment increased gene expression of Caspase3, Fas and high mobility group box 1 (HMGB 1). Administration of Cecropin B in vivo reduced tumor growth. In conclusion, Cecropin B possesses specific killing ability against tumor cells. There is the potential of development of anti-microbial peptides as anti-cancer drugs.
Highlights
Breast cancer is the leading cause of death in western women
We report the anti cancer effect of Cecropin B purified from silk worms infected with staphylococcus aureus on breast cancer cells
Mouse breast cancer cell line 4T1 cells and human breast cancer cell line MDA-MB231 were obtained from the ATCC and plated on 12-well plates, with 2 × 105 cells in 2 ml of culture medium-RPMI 1640 supplemented with 2 mmol/l l-glutamine, 100 U/ml penicillin, 100 μg streptomycin and 10% fetal bovine serum (FBS)
Summary
Breast cancer is the leading cause of death in western women. Chemotherapy, often combined with radiation therapy and surgery, is applied to a majority of cancer patients. Most cytotoxic anticancer agents in current use have little or no specificity for tumor cells and target both neoplastic and healthy proliferating cells, resulting in undesirable side effects such as nausea, vomiting, myelosuppression and even thrombocytopenia [1,2,3,4]. The frequent development of multi-drug resistance by cancer cells is another factor that hinders conventional chemotherapy. There is a need to develop new approaches to cancer therapy that targets tumor cells, sparing effects on all other cells, eliminating side effects, and avoiding the problem of drug resistance. A potential therapy has been found in certain cationic antimicrobial peptides (AMPs), which have been shown to destroy cancer cells [5,6,7]
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