Preliminary Study of Saffronin-induced Apoptosis of Human Breast Cancer Cells via PI3K/Akt/GSK-3β Pathway
Objective:To explore the effect of saffronin on the apoptosis of human breast cancer cells and related regulatory mechanisms.Methods:Human normal breast MCF-10A cells and human breast cancer MCF-7 cells were used as test cells,and different concentrations of saffronin 0(blank control group),200,400,800 mg/L and LY294002(PI3K-specific inhibitor)15 mg/L were used to intervene in the logarithmic growth phase MCF-10A cells and MCF-7 cells for 48 h.Tetramethyl azole blue(MTT)assay and clonal formation assay were adopted to detect the inhibition rate of cell proliferation and clonogenic ability of cells in each group respectively,Annexin V-FITC staining to detect the level of apoptosis,Western blot was applied to detect the expressions of PI3K,p-PI3K,Akt,p-Akt,GSK-3β,p-GSK-3β,Caspase-9,Cleaved caspase-3,Bcl-2 and Bax.Results:Compared with the blank control group,the difference had no statistical meaning in the proliferation inhibition rate,clone number and apoptosis rate of MCF-10A cells in the 200,400 and 800 mg/L saffronin group and the LY294002 group(P>0.05);the proliferation inhibition rate of MCF-7 cells in 400,800 mg/L saffronin group and LY294002 group increased,the number of clones decreased,and the apoptosis rate increased(P<0.01);the expression of p-PI3K,p-Akt,p-GSK-3β,Bcl-2 was down-regulated,and the expression of Caspase-9,Cleaved Caspase-3,and Bax was up-regulated(P<0.01).The phosphorylation rates of p-PI3K/PI3K,p-Akt/Akt,p-GSK-3β/GSK-3β were decreased(P<0.01),and the Bax/Bcl-2 expression ratio was increased(P<0.01).Compared with the LY294002 group,MCF-7 cells in the 800 mg/L saffronin group showed higher inhibition of cell proliferation,lower number of clones,and higher apoptosis rate(P<0.05 or P<0.01);Caspase-9,Cleaved Caspase-3 and Bax expressions were up-regulated(P<0.05 or P<0.01),and the Bax/Bcl-2 ratio was elevated(P<0.01),while the differences of the other indexes were not statistically significant between the two groups(P>0.05).Conclusion:saffronin could induce the apoptosis of human breast cancer cells,and its mechanism might be related to inhibiting p-PI3K/Akt/GSK-3β signaling pathway.
breast cancersaffroninproliferationcellular apoptosisp-PI3K/Akt/GSK-3β signaling pathway