College of Biological Science and Technology, HeiLongJiang August First Land Reclamation University, DaQing, China.
Pharm Biol. 2010 Mar;48(3):275-81. doi: 10.3109/13880200903104101.
Matrine, one of the main active components extracted from dry roots of Sophora flavescens Ait (Leguminosae), has been reported to have anticancer effects on a number of cancer cell lines, but the anticancer mechanism of matrine remains elusive. This study shows that matrine also displays anticancer activity on human hepatocellular carcinoma (HepG2) cells. In this work, the optimal cultivation condition for HepG2 cells was determined using the combinatorial orthogonal test design [L18 (21 x 37)]. Exposure of HepG2 cells to matrine resulted in inhibition of proliferation in both a time- and dose-dependent manner, as measured by morphology observation, hematoxylin and eosin (H&E) staining, and MTT assay (p<0.05). Further immunohistochemical analyses revealed that the expression of alpha fetal protein (AFP), proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA), C-myc and Bcl-2 was down-regulated significantly, but the expression of Bax was up-regulated higher than untreated cells. The results demonstrated that matrine inhibited HepG2 cells proliferation primarily via up-regulating or down-regulating expression of the tumor relevant proteins.
苦参碱是从苦参（豆科）的干根中提取的主要活性成分之一，据报道对多种癌细胞系具有抗癌作用，但苦参碱的抗癌机制仍不清楚。本研究表明苦参碱对人肝癌细胞（HepG2）也具有抗癌活性。在这项工作中，使用组合正交试验设计[L18（21×37）]确定了 HepG2 细胞的最佳培养条件。形态观察、苏木精和伊红（H＆E）染色和 MTT 测定表明，苦参碱处理 HepG2 细胞后，细胞增殖呈时间和剂量依赖性抑制（p＜0.05）。进一步的免疫组织化学分析表明，甲胎蛋白（AFP）、增殖细胞核抗原（PCNA）、C-myc 和 Bcl-2 的表达明显下调，而 Bax 的表达上调高于未处理细胞。结果表明，苦参碱通过上调或下调肿瘤相关蛋白的表达来抑制 HepG2 细胞的增殖。
