Autophagy-related gene 7 (ATG7) and reactive oxygen species/extracellular signal-regulated kinase regulate tetrandrine-induced autophagy in human hepatocellular carcinoma.

Tetrandrine, a bisbenzylisoquinoline alkaloid isolated from the broadly used Chinese medicinal herb Stephaniae tetrandrae, exhibits potent antitumor effects and has the potential to be used as a cancer chemotherapeutic agent. We previously reported that high concentrations of tetrandrine induce apoptosis in liver cancer cells. Here, we found that in human hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) cells, a low dose of tetrandrine (5 μm) induced the expression of LC3-II, resulted in the formation of acidic autophagolysosome vacuoles (AVOs), and caused a punctate fluorescence pattern with the GFP-LC3 protein, which all are markers for cellular autophagy. Tetrandrine induced the production of intracellular reactive oxygen species (ROS), and treatment with ROS scavengers significantly abrogated the tetrandrine-induced autophagy. These results suggest that the generation of ROS plays an important role in promoting tetrandrine-induced autophagy. Tetrandrine-induced mitochondrial dysfunction resulted in ROS accumulation and autophagy. ROS generation activated the ERK MAP kinase, and the ERK signaling pathway at least partially contributed to tetrandrine-induced autophagy in HCC cells. Moreover, we found that tetrandrine transcriptionally regulated the expression of autophagy related gene 7 (ATG7), which promoted tetrandrine-induced autophagy. In addition to in vitro studies, similar results were also observed in vivo, where tetrandrine caused the accumulation of ROS and induced cell autophagy in a tumor xenograft model. Interestingly, tetrandrine treatment also induced autophagy in a ROS-dependent manner in C. elegans muscle cells. Therefore, these findings suggest that tetrandrine is a potent autophagy agonist and may be a promising clinical chemotherapeutic agent.