Akt/survivin pathway inhibition enhances the apoptotic cell death-induced by alpha-santalol in human prostate cancer cells.

We have shown previously that alpha-santalol, a major component of sandalwood oil inhibits growth of cultured prostate cancer cells in vitro by causing apoptosis, but the mechanism of cell death is not fully elucidated. The present study was undertaken to investigate the role of PI3K/Akt/survivin pathway in alpha-santalol-induced apoptosis employing cultured LNCaP and PC-3 human prostate cancer cells. Treatment of prostate cancer cells with alpha-santalol (20, 40 μM) resulted in the down regulation of survivin and p-AKT (s-473) expression and statistically significant reduction in total survivin levels as evidenced by survivin ELISA assay. Furthermore, inhibition of PI3K-Akt pathway by pharmacological inhibitor, LY294002 enhanced the apoptotic cell death induced by alpha-santalol as determined by cell viability, cellular morphology, active caspase-3 activity and expression of cleaved PARP, cleaved caspase-3 levels. In conclusion, the present study provides novel insight into the molecular circuitry of alpha-santalol-induced cell death and reveals that alpha-santalol targets Akt/Survivin pathway to induce cell death and that the cell death is increased in the presence of a known inhibitor of the pathway.