Shikonin suppresses proliferation and induces apoptosis in endometrioid endometrial cancer cells via modulating /PTEN/AKT/mTOR signaling pathway.

Shikonin, a natural naphthoquinone isolated from a traditional Chinese medicinal herb, which exerts anticancer effects in various cancers. However, the molecular mechanisms underlying the therapeutic effects of shikonin against endometrioid endometrial cancer (EEC) have not yet been fully elucidated. Herein, we investigated anticancer effects of shikonin on EEC cells and explored the underlying molecular mechanism. We observed that shikonin inhibits proliferation in human EEC cell lines in a dose-dependent manner. Moreover, shikonin-induced apoptosis was characterized by the up-regulation of the pro-apoptotic proteins cleaved-Caspase-3 and Bax, and the down-regulation of the anti-apoptotic protein Bcl-2. Microarray analyses demonstrated that shikonin induces many miRNAs' dysregulation, and was one of the miRNAs being most significantly down-regulated. was identified to exert procancer effect in various cancers, but in EEC remains unclear. We first confirmed that is up-regulated in EEC tissues and cells, and knockdown of suppresses proliferation and promotes apoptosis. Meanwhile, our results validated that the restored expression of abrogates the antiproliferative and pro-apoptotic effects of shikonin. We also identified that targets phosphatase and tensin homolog (), a tumor suppressor gene, which in turn modulates AKT/mTOR signaling pathway. Our findings indicated that shikonin inhibits proliferation and promotes apoptosis in human EEC cells by modulating the /PTEN/AKT/mTOR signaling pathway, suggesting shikonin could act a potential therapeutic agent in the EEC treatment.