The aqueous extract of Chinese medicinal herb Brucea javanica suppresses the growth of human liver cancer and the derived stem-like cells by apoptosis

Abstract

Being effective and relatively safe, the traditional Chinese medicinal herb Brucea javanica (BJ) has been valuable in curing patients in East Asia and its nearby regions for years. Recent reports suggested that the medicinal herb possesses broad antitumor activity against various cancer cells. This study evaluated whether low concentrations of BJ aqueous extract inhibited the growth of liver cancer cells. Experiments including flow cytometry and Western blot analysis established the development of apoptotic cell death after treatment. Further experiments evaluated the growth of the enriched spheroids. BJ not only reduced the expression of stem cell markers but also eliminated tumor spheroids by apoptotic death. The findings suggest BJ is a promising supplement to the current therapy regimen and highlight the opportunity of BJ as a practical avenue to suppress the growth of the stem cells in liver cancer.

Keywords:

• Brucea javanica
• apoptosis
• stem cells
• human liver cancer cells

Acknowledgments

The work was supported by grants from the Ministry of Science and Technology, Executive Yuan, Republic of China (MOST 104-2320-B-003-001), and the National Taiwan Normal University (102T3040B2, 103T3040D2, and 104T3040C2). The authors acknowledge the Department of Life Science and Instrumentation Center, National Taiwan Normal University, for technical assistance of fluorescence and confocal laser microscopy.

Disclosure

The authors report no conflicts of interest in this work.