Comparative Proteomic Analysis of Drug Trichosanthin Addition to BeWo Cell Line

Trichosanthin (TCS) is a traditional Chinese herbal medicine used to treat some gynecological diseases. Its effective component has diverse biological functions, including antineoplastic activity. The human trophoblast cell line BeWo was chosen as an experimental model for in vitro testing of a drug screen for anticancer properties of TCS. The MTT method was used in this study to get a primary screen result. The result showed that 100 mM had the best IC50 value. Proteomics analysis was then performed for further investigation of the drug effect of TCS on the BeWo cell line. In this differential proteomic expression analysis, the total proteins extracted from the BeWo cell line and their protein expression level after the drug treatment were compared by 2DE. Then, 24 unique three-fold differentially expressed proteins (DEPs) were successfully identified by MALDI-TOF/TOF MS. Label-free proteomics was run as a complemental method for the same experimental procedure. There are two proteins that were identified in both the 2DE and label-free methods. Among those identified proteins, bioinformatics analysis showed the importance of pathway and signal transduction and gives us the potential possibility for the disease treatment hypothesis.

Automated summary

Trichosanthin (TCS), a Chinese herbal medicine, has been used in the treatment of gynecological diseases. In this study, the anticancer properties of TCS were tested using the human trophoblast cell line BeWo. MTT method was used for primary screening, and proteomics analysis was conducted to investigate the drug effect. The study identified several differentially expressed proteins and suggested potential pathways and signal transduction for disease treatment.