Radix Tetrastigma Inhibits the Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer via Bax/Bcl-2/Caspase-9/Caspase-3 Pathway

Abstract

Lung cancer with high mortality is regarded as a challenging global problem with unsatisfied curative effects. Clinically, the chemotherapy drugs are often faced with side-effects and tumor resistance. Radix Tetrastigma (RT) is a traditional Chinese herb and now regarded as a kind of functional food. In this study, A549-bearing nude mice control was adopted to evaluate the anti-tumor capacity of RT. Results demonstrated that RT showed excellent anti-tumor ability with no side-effect on mice compared to chemotherapy drug (5-Fu).Further studies proved that RT down-regulated the proliferation-related proteins (PCNA, Ki67) and vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF). Additionally, RT up-regulated the ratio of Bax/Bcl-2, which caused the over-expression of Caspase-9, leading to the activation of downstream protein caspase-3, eventually resulting in apoptosis of A549 in solid tumor. These results together suggest that RT inhibits the non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) via Bax/Bcl2/Caspase-9/Caspase-3 pathway. Furthermore, the anti-A549 abilities of the main flavonoid components from RT were compared, and kaempferol-3-O-rutinoside would play a role in RT’s outstanding anti-NSCLC ability.

Declaration of Competing Interest

The authors have declared no conflict of interest.

Author Contribution Statement

Yonglu Li was responsible for investigation and experimental conduction, methodology and writing, Xiaodong Zheng and Qiang Chu were responsible for conceptualization, supervision and data curation. Yaxuan Wang, Xin Yu and Ting Yu, were responsible for RT raw resource collection and partly taken part in animal experiments.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the China Scholarship Council (202006320187), the Advanced Postdoctoral Program of Zhejiang Province, Science and Technology Department of Zhejiang Province (No. 2018C02045) and the Shanghai Zhengyue Enterprise Management Co., Ltd.