RESUMO
Some species of the Scrophularia genus have been extensively used as a natural remedy for treatment of various medical conditions. The objective of this study was to evaluate the growth inhibitory activity of Scrophularia frigida Boiss extracts as well as to study the effect of the potent extracts on the induction of apoptosis and cell cycle arrest on human breast cancer cells. S. frigida Boiss extracts exhibited obvious inhibitory effects on the growth of cancer cells and induced apoptosis. It is suggested that the extracts exert their anti-proliferative effect through multiple implications such as suppressing growth, arresting the cell cycle, increased DNA fragmentation, downregulation of the expression of human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 and myeloid cell Leukemia-1, and upregulation of pro-apoptotic messenger RNAs like caspase-3 and caspase-9. Taken together, the results obtained indicate that S. frigida Boiss extracts may contain effective compounds that can be used as a therapeutic anticancer agent.
Assuntos
Apoptose/efeitos dos fármacos , Regulação Neoplásica da Expressão Gênica/efeitos dos fármacos , Extratos Vegetais/farmacologia , Receptor ErbB-2/genética , Receptor ErbB-2/metabolismo , Scrophularia/química , Antineoplásicos Fitogênicos/química , Antineoplásicos Fitogênicos/farmacologia , Neoplasias da Mama/fisiopatologia , Caspase 3/metabolismo , Caspase 9/metabolismo , Pontos de Checagem do Ciclo Celular/efeitos dos fármacos , Linhagem Celular Tumoral , Proliferação de Células/efeitos dos fármacos , Fragmentação do DNA/efeitos dos fármacos , Regulação para Baixo/efeitos dos fármacos , Feminino , Humanos , Proteína de Sequência 1 de Leucemia de Células Mieloides/metabolismo , Extratos Vegetais/química , Reação em Cadeia da Polimerase em Tempo Real , Scrophularia/metabolismoRESUMO
Breast cancer is the most common cancer among women in worldwide, especially in developing countries. Therefore, a large number of anticancer agents with herbal origins have been reported against this deadly disease. This study is the first to examine the cytotoxic and apoptotic effects of Urtica dioica in MDA-MB-468, human breast adenocarcinoma cells. The 3-(4,5-dimethylethiazol-2 yl)-2,5- diphenyltetrazolium (MTT) reduction and trypan-blue exclusion assay were performed in MDA-MB-468 cells as well as control cell line L929 to analyze the cytotoxic activity of the dichloromethane extract. In addition, Apoptosis induction of Urtica dioica on the MDA-MB-468 cells was assessed using TUNEL (terminal deoxy transferase (TdT)-mediated dUTP nick- end labeling) assay and DNA fragmentation analysis and real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR). The results showed that the extract significantly inhibited cell growth and viability without inducing damage to normal control cells. Nuclei Staining in TUNEL and DNA fragments in DNA fragmentation assay and increase in the mRNA expression levels of caspase-3, caspase-9, decrease in the bcl2 and no significant change in the caspase-8 mRNA expression level, showed that the induction of apoptosis was the main mechanism of cell death that induce by Urtica dioica extract. Our results suggest that urtica dioica dichloromethane extract may contain potential bioactive compound(s) for the treatment of breast adenocarcinoma.