Vitexin induces apoptosis by suppressing autophagy in multi-drug resistant colorectal cancer cells. - GreenMedInfo Summary
Vitexin induces apoptosis by suppressing autophagy in multi-drug resistant colorectal cancer cells.
Oncotarget. 2018 Jan 9 ;9(3):3278-3291. Epub 2017 Dec 4. PMID: 29423046
Monika Bhardwaj
Cancer treatment is limited due to the diverse multidrug resistance acquired by cancer cells and the collateral damage caused to adjacent normal cells by chemotherapy. The flavonoid compound vitexin exhibits anti-oxidative, anti-inflammatory and anti-tumor activity. This study elucidated the antitumor effects of vitexin and its underlying mechanisms in a multi-drug resistant human colon cancer cell line (HCT-116), which exhibits higher levels of multidrug-resistant protein 1 (MDR1) expression as compared with its parental cell line (HCT-116). Here, we observed that vitexin suppressed MDR-1 expression and activity in HCT-116cells and showed cytotoxic effect in HCT-116cells by inhibiting autophagy and inducing apoptosis in a concentration-dependent manner. Additionally, vitexin treatment caused cleavage of caspase-9 and caspase-3, and upregulated the expression of the pro-apoptotic proteins, BID and Bax. Moreover, the expression of autophagy-related proteins, such as ATG5, Beclin-1 and LC3-II, was markedly reduced by vitexin treatment. Furthermore,experiments showed that vitexin induced apoptosis and suppressed tumor growth in HCT-116xenograft model. These results revealed that vitexin induced apoptosis through suppression of autophagyandand provide insight into the therapeutic potential of vitexin for the treatment of chemo-resistant colorectal cancer.