Wikstromol fromWikstroemia indicainduces apoptosis and suppresses migration of MDA-MB-231 cells via inhibiting PI3K/Akt pathway

Triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) is the most severe type of breast cancer due to the lack of specific targets and rapid metastasis, which result in the poor prognosis. Recently, phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3K)/Akt pathway has emerged as a potential target for the treatment of TNBC. In our research interest to discover phytochemicals targeting TNBC, we have investigated wikstromol fromWikstroemia indicausing the human TNBC MDA-MB-231 cells. The results showed wikstromol at 10 mu M inhibited cell growth of MDA-MB-231 cells which was confirmed by MTT assay. Further DAPI staining has revealed wikstromol at 10 mu M induced apoptosis of cancer cells, which was associated with the activation of caspase-3 following down-regulation of Bcl-2 as well as up-regulation of Bax, cleaved PARP and phosphorylated p53. Meanwhile, it was observed at 0.1 mu M wikstromol suppressed the migration of the cancer cells via decreasing transcription of NF-kappa B and reducing activity and secretion of downstream MMP-9. In addition, p-PI3K and p-Akt were down-regulated in MDA-MB-231 cells in the presence of wikstromol at 0.1 mu M, which indicated inactivation of PI3K/Akt pathway was involved in these inhibitory effects.

Automated summary

In the study, it was found that wikstromol inhibited cell growth and induced apoptosis in TNBC cells, suppressed cell migration, and the inhibitory effects were involved in the inactivation of the PI3K/Akt pathway.