Molecules (Jan 2013)

In Vitro and in Vivo Anticancer Activity of Aconitine on Melanoma Cell Line B16

  • Juan Du,
  • Xiaonian Lu,
  • Ziwen Long,
  • Zhen Zhang,
  • Xiaohua Zhu,
  • Yongsheng Yang,
  • Jinhua Xu

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3390/molecules18010757
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 18, no. 1
pp. 757 – 767

Abstract

Read online

The anti-tumor effect of aconitine in melanoma cell line B16 has been studied in this paper. We found that B16 cells showed significantly reduced growth rates and increased apoptotic effects in the presence of aconitine. Furthermore, aconitine inhibited the PI3K/AKT and MAPK/ERK1/2 signaling pathways, thus regulating the levels of protein and mRNA of PCNA and apoptotic related signaling molecules. Above all, we found that aconitine showed an anti-melanoma effect in suppressing tumor growth in vivo. In conclusion, we show that aconitine may be a useful anticancer drug in the future.

Keywords