Anticancer Activity Induced by a Rare Ginsenoside Compound K in Human Neuroblastoma
Anticancer Activity Induced by a Rare Ginsenoside Compound K in Human Neuroblastoma
Seun Eui Kim1,2*, Myoung-Hoon Lee1, Hye Myoung Jang2, Garam Park2, Wan-Taek Im3, Gwang Joo Jeon2,4*
ABSTRACT
Neuroblastoma is the most common tumor in children and is still a carcinoma, which requires discovery of new therapeutic agents as were in cases of other cancers. Although the anticancer activity of a rare ginsenoside compound K (CK) against various cancers has been reported, there are few studies on neuroblastoma. In this study, cell viability and cell migration assay were tested and the expression of 17 genes in related signaling pathways was analyzed to determine the potential of CK as an anticancer agent for neuroblastoma. For the study of human neuroblastoma, SK-N-MC cells were studied. IC50 values were 33.06 μM and at 40 μM and 60 μM of CK, the wound coverage rates were 11.5% and 0.5%, indicating the cell migration was strongly inhibited. Among the apoptosis-related genes of BAK1, caspase -3, -8, -9, and -12, the expression of caspase 8 was decreased but the expression of caspase 9 and caspase 3 increased, suggesting that the intrinsic signaling pathway was highly activated. Throughout the analyses of cell cycle-related genes, CD1, CDK4, mTOR, Raptor, H-, K-, and N-Ras, the expression of CD1 was decreased, but the expression of other genes was slightly increased. This suggests that CK may act as an inhibition of CD1/CDK4 expression for G1 arrest. Moreover, the expression of p53, p21, MMP2, and MMP9 related to cancer metastasis and invasion was significantly increased or decreased in the CK-treated group, showing that CK properly and antagonistically works on anticancer activity. The expression of angiogenesis-related gene of VEGF unexpectedly was increased. In conclusion, this study confirmed that ginsenoside CK is a new anticancer candidate with excellent anticancer activity inducing cell cycle arrest, apoptosis and in some extent cell migration/metastasis inhibition for neuroblastoma.
Keywords | Neuroblastoma, Compound K , Anticancer
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