Title:Exploring a Novel Target Treatment on Breast Cancer: Aloe-emodin Mediated Photodynamic Therapy Induced Cell Apoptosis and Inhibited Cell Metastasis
Volume: 16
Issue: 6
Author(s): Qing Chen, Si Tian, Jing Zhu, Kai-Ting Li, Ting-He Yu, Le-Hua Yu and Ding-Qun Bai
Affiliation:
Keywords:
Aloe-emodin, cell death, endoplasmic reticulum, mitochondrial, oxidative stress, photodynamic therapy.
Abstract: Photodynamic therapy (PDT) as a clinical cancer therapy, is a mild therapy, which involves application
of photosensitizers (PSs) located in target cells and then irradiated by corresponding wavelength. The activation of
PSs generates radical oxygen species (ROS) to exert a selective cytotoxic activity for the target cells. Aloe-emodin
(AE) has been found to be an anti-tumor agent in many studies, and has also been demonstrated as a
photosensitizer, in the recent years. In order to study the mechanisms of aloe-emodin as a photosensitizer, we
investigated the mechanisms of photo-cytotoxicity induced by aloe-emodin in breast cancer MCF-7 cells in the
present study. Analysis of cell proliferation evidenced that there was a drastic depression after photodynamic
treatment with a series of aloe-emodin concentrations and light doses. We observed changes in apoptosis and demonstrated that the
mechanisms of apoptosis were involved in mitochondrial and endoplasmic reticulum death pathways. The capacity of adhesion,
migration and invasion of breast cells was measured using WST8 and transwell assay and demonstrated that AE-PDT significantly
inhibited adhesion, migration and invasion of MCF-7cells. The expression of MMP2, MMP9, VEGF and Nrf2 demonstrated that the
metastasis was related to oxidative stress. Analysis of changes in cytoskeleton components (F-actin) evidenced cytoskeleton
disorganization after treatment with AE-PDT. Taken together, the present results indicated that PDT with aloe-emodin effectively
suppressed cancer development in MCF-7cells, suggesting the potential of AE as a new photosensitizer in PDT which can provide a new
modility for treating cancer.
