C-Phycocyanin elicited antitumor efficacy via cell-cycle arrest, apoptosis induction, and invasion inhibition in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma

Abstract

Objectives: Mounting evidence has demonstrated that C-Phycocyanin (C-PC) exhibits marked antitumor activity in a wide type of tumors, such as pancreas cancer, breast carcinoma, lung cancer, and colon cancer. The current study aimed to confirm the antitumor efficacy of C-PC in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC).

Methods: The efficacy of C-PC was evaluated against the proliferation of ESCC cell lines EC9706 and EC1 by CCK-8 kit and in a mice model of ESCC EC9706. Cell cycle and apoptosis were investigated by flow cytometry, and cell invasion was determined via transwell chamber. Protein expression was examined by Western blots.

Results: We found that C-PC exhibited anti-proliferation ability in a time-dependent manner and a dose-dependent manner in ESCC EC9706 and EC1 cells. Besides, C-PC markedly arrested cell cycle in the G0/G1 phase, induced cell apoptosis and suppressed cell invasion ability in both EC9706 and EC1 cells (p < .01). Notably, C-PC evoked the elevations of Bax, PARP, and cleaved-caspase-3 protein, but reduced cyclin D1, CDK4, Bcl-2, MMP-2, and MMP-9 expression levels. Further investigation from in vivo experiment revealed that C-PC displayed significant antitumor efficacy in the xenografted EC9706 model.

Conclusions: Our data presented herein suggest C-PC exerts antitumor efficacy in ESCC.

Keywords:

• C-Phycocyanin
• esophageal squamous cell carcinoma
• antitumor efficacy
• tumor growth

Ethics approval and consent to participate

All animal experiments were approved by the Animal Welfare and Research Ethics Committee of Zhengzhou University (Zhengzhou, China) and were conducted in accordance with the regulations of Zhengzhou University.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that we have no financial or non-financial conflicts of interest related to the subject matter or materials discussed in the article.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 81272691 and 30600006), the Natural Science Foundation of Henan Province (No. 182300410377) and the Key scientific research projects of Henan higher education institutions (No. 17A180016), the Major Project of Science and Technology in Henan Province (No. 161100311400), and Zhongyuan Scholars Program of Henan Province (No.162101510006).