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The anti-proliferative effects of norcantharidin on human HepG2 cells in cell culture

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An Erratum to this article was published on 28 November 2012

An Erratum to this article was published on 22 April 2012

Abstract

Many lines of evidence have shown that Chinese medicine contains many chemical compounds with anticancer effects. Therefore, we tested whether the active ingredients of blister beetles have a therapeutic effect on hepatoma. The aim of this study was to investigate the inhibitive effects of norcantharidin which is extracted from blister beetles on human hepatoma cells HepG2 in vitro and its anticancer mechanism.MTT assay, agarose gel electrophoresis and flow cytometry were used to evaluate HepG2 cells proliferation and apoptosis. The role of caspase activities were assayed using caspase apoptosis detection kit. Western blot analysis was used to evaluate the level of Bcl-2/Bax expression. Our results indicate that norcantharidin inhibited HepG2 cell growth in a time- and dose-dependent manner by MTT assay. HepG2 cells treated with norcantharidin showed typical characteristics of apoptosis including the DNA fragmentation. The activities of caspase-3, -9 were up-regulated after norcantharidin treatment. By western blot analysis, we found the level of Bcl-2 were down-regulated, whereas, the level of Bcl-2 Up-regulated.so we suggest that up-regulation of mitochondrial Bax expression and down-regulation of Bcl-2 expression participated in the apoptosis induced by NCTD. These results suggest that norcantharidin triggers apoptosis in hepato cancer cell lines via the activation of the caspses, mitochondrial pathways, and that this agent may be useful for developing new therapeutic regimens for the treatment of colorectal carcinoma.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Shi-quan Liu, Department of Oncology, Zhongnan Hospital of Wuhan University, for providing the HepG2 cell line and the technical support of cell culture, and Jun Luo, Department of Pathology, for exceptional technical assistance in flow cytometry analysis.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Gastroenterology, Zhongnan Hospital of Wuhan University, East-Lake Road 169, 430071, Wuhan, Hubei Province, China

    Cheng Chang, Youqing Zhu, Xiaoyan Tang & Wenhui Tao

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  1. Cheng Chang
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  2. Youqing Zhu
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  3. Xiaoyan Tang
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  4. Wenhui Tao
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Correspondence to Youqing Zhu.

Additional information

An erratum to this article can be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11033-012-1620-1

An erratum to this article can be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11033-012-2336-y

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Chang, C., Zhu, Y., Tang, X. et al. The anti-proliferative effects of norcantharidin on human HepG2 cells in cell culture. Mol Biol Rep 38, 163–169 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11033-010-0090-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11033-010-0090-6

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