[Proteomic approach to the effect of epirubicin on hepatoma cells at subcellular level].

Epirubicin is an antineoplastic agent known as an anthracycline. It acts directly on DNA by blocking its replication and transcription, so apoptosis can be induced for cancer cells. The protein expression of cancer cells will be altered due to the induction of pharmacological action of epirubicin, so it is important to pay attention to the altered profiling of proteins. Here proteomic strategy was applied to the hepatoma cells at subcellular level, comparative proteome analysis of mitochondria and nucleus were conducted between the hepatoma cells administered with epirubicin and the not-administered. Centrifugation was used for the subcellular fractionation, then 2-DE for the separation of proteins, imaging analysis for the diction of expression-altered spots, and MALDI-TOF-MS for the identification of proteins. In total, 15 proteins were found to have altered their expression after the induction of epirubicin, among them, 5 proteins showed up-regulated expression and 10 showed down-regulated expression. These altered proteins are involved in life processes of cells such as energy metabolism, protein biosynthesis, structure of cell skeleton, processing and maturation of mRNA, heat shock of cells and apoptosis.