Department of Biochemistry, Sree Chitra Tirunal Institute for Medical Sciences and Technology, Thiruvananthapuram, India.
Pharmacology. 2012;89(1-2):91-8. doi: 10.1159/000335659. Epub 2012 Feb 14.
Aloe emodin (AE), a natural anthraquinone, is reported to have antiproliferative activity in various cancer cell lines. In this study, we analyzed the molecular mechanisms involved in the growth-inhibitory activity of this hydroxyanthraquinone in colon cancer cell, WiDr. In our observation AE inhibited cell proliferation by arresting the cell cycle at the G2/M phase and inhibiting cyclin B1. AE appreciably induced cell death specifically through the induction of apoptosis and by activating caspases 9/6. Apoptotic execution was found to be solely dependent on caspase-6 rather than caspase-3 or caspase-7. This is the first study indicating that the AE induces apoptosis specifically through the activation of caspase-6.
大黄素（AE）是一种天然蒽醌，据报道在各种癌细胞系中具有抗增殖活性。在这项研究中，我们分析了这种羟基蒽醌在结肠癌 WiDr 细胞中抑制生长活性的分子机制。我们的观察表明，AE 通过将细胞周期阻滞在 G2/M 期和抑制细胞周期蛋白 B1 来抑制细胞增殖。AE 明显通过诱导细胞凋亡和激活 caspase-9/6 来诱导细胞死亡。凋亡执行被发现仅依赖于 caspase-6，而不是 caspase-3 或 caspase-7。这是第一项表明 AE 通过激活 caspase-6 特异性诱导细胞凋亡的研究。
