Moscatilin inhibits lung cancer cell motility and invasion via suppression of endogenous reactive oxygen species.

Lung cancer is the leading cause of death among cancer patients worldwide, and most of them have died from metastasis. Migration and invasion are prerequisite processes associated with high metastasis potential in cancers. Moscatilin, a bibenzyl derivative isolated from the Thai orchid Dendrobium pulchellum, has been shown to have anticancer effect against numerous cancer cell lines. However, little is known regarding the effect of moscatilin on cancer cell migration and invasion. The present study demonstrates that nontoxic concentrations of moscatilin were able to inhibit human nonsmall cell lung cancer H23 cell migration and invasion. The inhibitory effect of moscatilin was associated with an attenuation of endogenous reactive oxygen species (ROS), in which hydroxyl radical (OH(∙)) was identified as a dominant species in the suppression of filopodia formation. Western blot analysis also revealed that moscatilin downregulated activated focal adhesion kinase (phosphorylated FAK, Tyr 397) and activated ATP-dependent tyrosine kinase (phosphorylated Akt, Ser 473), whereas their parental counterparts were not detectable changed. In conclusion, our results indicate the novel molecular basis of moscalitin-inhibiting lung cancer cell motility and invasion and demonstrate a promising antimetastatic potential of such an agent for lung cancer therapy.