PLoS ONE (Jan 2013)

Anti-Proliferative Effects of Evodiamine on Human Breast Cancer Cells.

  • Kai-Lee Wang,
  • Shih-Min Hsia,
  • Jiun-Yih Yeh,
  • Shao-Chi Cheng,
  • Paulus S Wang,
  • Shyi-Wu Wang

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0067297
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 8, no. 6
p. e67297

Abstract

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Endocrine sensitivity, assessed by the expression of estrogen receptor (ER), has long been the predict factor to guide therapeutic decisions. Tamoxifen has been the most successful hormonal treatment in endocrine-sensitive breast cancer. However, in estrogen-insensitive cancer tamoxifen showed less effectiveness than in estrogen-sensitive cancer. It is interesting to develop new drugs against both hormone-sensitive and insensitive tumor. In this present study we examined anticancer effects of evodiamine extracted from the Chinese herb, Evodiae fructus, in estrogen-dependent and -independent human breast cancer cells, MCF-7 and MDA-MB-231 cells, respectively. Evodiamine inhibited the proliferation of MCF-7 and MDA-MB-231 cells in a concentration-dependent manner with concentration of 1×10(-6) and 1×10(-5) M. Evodiamine also induced apoptosis via up-regulation of caspase 7 activation, PARP cleavage (Bik and Bax expression). The expression of ER α and β in protein and mRNA levels was down-regulated by evodiamine according to data from immunoblotting and RT-PCR analysis. Overall, our results indicate that evodiamine mediates degradation of ER and induces caspase-dependent pathway leading to inhibit proliferation of breast cancer cell lines. It suggests that evodiamine may in part mediate through ER-inhibitory pathway to inhibit breast cancer cell proliferation.