Zhang Xing, Bi Lingyun, Ye Yu, Chen Jian
a Faculty of Basic Medicine , Guilin Medical University , Guilin , Guangxi , People's Republic of China.
Nutr Cancer. 2014;66(4):656-61. doi: 10.1080/01635581.2014.894098. Epub 2014 Mar 25.
Formononetin (FN), a bioactive component extracted from the red clover (Trifolium pratense L.), has been long used for treating carcinomas in China. In the present study, we aim to investigate the potential therapeutical effects of FN on cell line of prostatic adenocarcinoma (PC-3) and human prostate epithelial cells (RWPE1). These findings indicated that FN significantly inhibited the cell growth of PC-3 in a dose-dependent manner, but no such effect was observed in RWPE1 cells. The apoptotic counts were effectively increased following the treatments as shown in flow cytometry. The results from Western blotting assay suggested that FN treatment contributed to the reduced Bcl-2 protein level and the elevated Bax expression in PC-3 cells, thereby resulting in the increasing Bax/Bcl-2 ratios. Furthermore, the phosphorylated level of p38 in PC-3 cells was activated through the FN treatment, whereas the endogenous Akt phosphorylation was blocked. Collectively, our findings demonstrate that FN exerts the anticarcinogenic effect on prostate cancer in vitro, in which the underlying mechanisms are associated with enhancing the Bax/Bcl-2 ratios and regulating the p38/Akt pathway, thus triggering apoptosis in tumor cells.
芒柄花黄素（FN）是从红车轴草（Trifolium pratense L.）中提取的一种生物活性成分，在中国长期用于治疗癌症。在本研究中，我们旨在探讨FN对前列腺癌细胞系（PC-3）和人前列腺上皮细胞（RWPE1）的潜在治疗作用。这些结果表明，FN以剂量依赖性方式显著抑制PC-3细胞的生长，但在RWPE1细胞中未观察到这种作用。流式细胞术显示，处理后凋亡细胞计数有效增加。蛋白质免疫印迹分析结果表明，FN处理导致PC-3细胞中Bcl-2蛋白水平降低，Bax表达升高，从而导致Bax/Bcl-2比值增加。此外，通过FN处理激活了PC-3细胞中p38的磷酸化水平，而内源性Akt磷酸化被阻断。总的来说，我们的研究结果表明，FN在体外对前列腺癌具有抗癌作用，其潜在机制与提高Bax/Bcl-2比值和调节p38/Akt信号通路有关，从而触发肿瘤细胞凋亡。
