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An Insight on Synergistic Anti-cancer Efficacy of Biochanin A and Sulforaphane Combination Against Breast Cancer

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Abstract

Breast cancer is a serious malignancy that has higher rate of morbidity and mortality. It has been known to affect the women indifferently. The lack and side effects in the current therapeutic modules result in the search of the wide treatment options including combinatorial treatment. The goal of this study was to investigate combinatorial anti-proliferative efficacy of biochanin A (BCA) and sulforaphane (SFN) against MCF-7 breast cancer cells. The study involves the utilisation of various qualitative techniques including cytotoxicity analysis (MTT), morphogenic analysis, AO/EtBr, DAPI, ROS, cell cycle, and cell migration analysis in order to examine the combinatorial efficacy of BCA and SFN in inducing the cell death. The results had shown that the cytotoxicity of BCA and SFN was found to be around 24.5 µM and 27.2 µM respectively, while the combination of BCA and SFN had shown an inhibitory activity at about 20.1 µM. And furthermore, AO/EtBr and DAPI had shown a profound increase in apoptogenic activity of compounds when treated in combination at lower dose. This apoptogenic activity may be attributed to the increased ROS production. Moreover, it has been shown that the BCA and SFN have been involved in the down-regulation of ERK-1/2 signalling pathway resulting in induction of apoptosis of cancer cells. Thus, our results had concluded that BCA and SFN co-treatment could be used as an efficient therapeutic target against breast cancer. Furthermore, in vivo efficiency by which the co-treatment induces apoptosis has to be deliberated further in near future to make their use commercially.

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Author notes

  1. Jutao Li and Junqin Xu contributed equally.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Breast and Thyroid Surgery Ward 1, Dalian Municipal Central Hospital Affiliated of Dalian Medical University, Dalian, Liaoning, 116021, China

    Jutao Li

  2. Department of Emergency, The First People’s Hospital of Jiangxia District, Wuhan City, Hubei, 430200, China

    Junqin Xu

  3. Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Dalian Municipal Central Hospital Affiliated of Dalian Medical University, Dalian, Liaoning, 116021, China

    Yuxin Sun

  4. Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, Hubei, 430030, China

    Ruolan Fu

  5. Department of Oncology, Xiantao First People’s Hospital, Xiantao, Hubei, 433000, China

    Dan Ye

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Jutao Li and Junqin Xu have been involved in manuscript preparation and working. Yuxin Sun has been involved in working the scientific part of the manuscript. Ruolan Fu has been involved in manuscript preparation and working. Dan Ye has framed the work and revised the manuscript for submission.

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Correspondence to Dan Ye.

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Li, J., Xu, J., Sun, Y. et al. An Insight on Synergistic Anti-cancer Efficacy of Biochanin A and Sulforaphane Combination Against Breast Cancer. Appl Biochem Biotechnol 196, 992–1007 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12010-023-04584-w

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