Tropical Journal of Pharmaceutical Research

Original Research Article | OPEN ACCESS

Effect of cucurbitacin on malignant biological behavior of breast cancer cells, and its possible underlying mechanism

Yun Ren¹, Guangyan Huang¹, Qiang Xue¹, Qinjing Lv¹, Yayun Wu¹, Qianfei Wu¹, Wei Yao¹, Bowen Wang¹, Shengya Wang²

¹Department of Breast Cancer Surgery, Taihe County People's Hospital, Fuyang 236600, Anhui Province, China; ²Department of Head, Neck and Beast Surgery, Anhui Provincial Cancer Hospital, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230000, Anhui Province, China.

For correspondence:- Shengya Wang Email: hv81cv@163.com

Accepted: 19 January 2022 Published: 28 February 2021

Citation: Ren Y, Huang G, Xue Q, Lv Q, Wu Y, Wu Q, et al. Effect of cucurbitacin on malignant biological behavior of breast cancer cells, and its possible underlying mechanism. Trop J Pharm Res 2022; 21(2):297-302 doi: 10.4314/tjpr.v21i2.12

© 2022 The authors.
This is an Open Access article that uses a funding model which does not charge readers or their institutions for access and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0) and the Budapest Open Access Initiative (http://www.budapestopenaccessinitiative.org/read), which permit unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited..

Abstract

Purpose: To study the influence of cucurbitacin on malignant biological behavior of mammary carcinoma cells, and the likely mechanism involved.

Methods: Human mammary carcinoma cell line MDA-MB-436 was selected for cell culture and treated with different concentrations of cucurbitacin. The effect of cucurbitacin on cell activity, cell colony-formation capacity, cell invasion, migration potential, matrix metalloproteinase-9 (MMP-9) activity, and levels of vascular endothelial growth factor A (VEGFA), epithelial calcium adhesion (E-cadherin), and neurogenic calcium adhesion (N-cadherin) were measured. Moreover, levels of wave protein (vimentin), phosphorylated epidermal growth factor receptor (p-EGFR), phosphorylated signaling transduction, and transcription activation factor 3 (p-STAT3) and phosphorylated protein kinase B (p-Akt) were determined.

Results: With increase in cucurbitacin dose, there was significant decrease in cell viability, cell colony ratio, cell invasion and migration capacity, and expression levels of MMP-9, VEGFA, e-cadherin, n-cadherin, vimentin, P-EGFR, P-STAT3 and p-Akt (p < 0.05).

Conclusion: Cucurbitacin inhibits the proliferation, invasion, and migration of breast cancer cells by down-regulating the expressions of EGFR/STAT3/Akt signaling-related proteins, and inhibiting epithelial-mesenchymal transition transformation.

Keywords: Cucurbitacin, Breast cancer, Malignant biological behavior, Risk factors