Propofol suppresses hepatocellular carcinoma by inhibiting NET1 through downregulating ERK/VEGF signaling pathway.

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the leading cause of tumor death in China with high mortality since its strong metastatic potential. Currently, treatment against advanced HCC is poorly efficient and thus screening new drugs to prevent the HCC invasion is of great significance to improve the survival rate of patients with HCC. From the results of this study, we concluded that propofol, a widely used anesthetics could prevent the proliferation by MTT assay. The scratch wound and invasion assays showed that migratory property and invasiveness in HCC cells SMMC-7721 was inhibited by propofol. This process was probably mediated by NET1 since NET1 overexpression offset the repressive effect of propofol on the invasiveness and migratory ability of SMMC-7721 cells. Furthermore, propofol treatment also reduced p-ERK1/2 and VEGF level by western blot analysis. Similar observation was found when NET1 was silenced. Thus, the results of this study provided valuable clinical therapy potential of propofol against liver cancer. We also disclosed molecular mechanism underlying the regulation of invasion and migration in HCC cells by NET1.