Jiedu Sangen Decoction Inhibits Migration and Invasion of Colon Cancer SW480 Cells via Suppressing Epithelial Mesenchymal Transition.

Jiedu Sangen Decoction (JSD), a traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) formula, has been widely used in China to treat gastrointestinal cancer, especially as an adjuvant therapy in colorectal cancer (CRC) patients. This study aimed to evaluate the efficacy of JSD and Jiedu Sangen aqueous extract (JSAE) in colon cancer cells and explored the underlining mechanisms by cytotoxicity assay, scratch assay, transwell migration assay, matrigel invasion assay, confocal laser scanning microscopy, and western blot analysis. We demonstrated that JSAE inhibited the growth of colon cancer SW480 cells in a dose-dependent manner and JSAE repressed cancer cell migration and invasion. Furthermore, epithelial mesenchymal transition (EMT) was reversed by JSAE via enhancing E-cadherin expression and attenuating protein levels of EMT promoting factors such as N-cadherin, Slug, and ZEB1. These findings provided the first experimental evidence confirming the efficacy of JSAE in repressing invasion and metastasis of CRC and paving a way for the broader use of JSD in clinic.

VEGF-C in rectal cancer tissues promotes tumor invasion and metastasis.

PURPOSE: To investigate the relationship between the expression of vascular endothelial growth factor-C (VEGF-C) in rectal cancer tissues and clinicopathological factors. METHODS: The molecular expression of VEGF-C in rectal cancer tissue derived from 45 patients and normal colon tissue from 15 subjects was detected using the immunohistochemical streptavidin/biotin/peroxidase complex (SABC) three-step method. The expression of VEGF-C in rectal cancer and its relationship with clinicopathological factors were statistically analyzed via x2 test or Spearman's rank correlation analysis or Wilcoxon rank sum test. RESULTS: The positive expression rate of VEGF-C was 75.55% in rectal cancer tissues and 6.66% in normal tissues (p<0.01). The positive expression of VEGF-C was not related to patient gender, age and tumor diameter, but related to the grade of differentiation, depth of invasion, lymph node metastasis and Dukes stage (p<0.05). Positive intensity had no statistically significant difference with grade of differentiation and depth of invasion (p>0.05), but had statistically significant difference in lymph node metastasis and Dukes stage (p<0.05). CONCLUSIONS: 1) VEGF-C is highly expressed in rectal cancer tissues; 2) The positive expression of VEGF-C is positively correlated with tumor invasion depth, lymph node metastasis and Dukes stage; 3) Detection of VEGF-C expression can be used as a prognostic marker in rectal cancer.