Basic Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2016. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Apr 7, 2016; 22(13): 3564-3572
Published online Apr 7, 2016. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v22.i13.3564
Apoptosis of human gastric carcinoma cells induced by Euphorbia esula latex
Zhao-Ying Fu, Xiao-Dong Han, Ai-Hong Wang, Xiao-Bin Liu
Zhao-Ying Fu, Institute of Molecular Biology and Immunology, Yan’an University, Yan’an 716000, Shaanxi Province, China
Xiao-Dong Han, Department of Medicine, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an 710061, Shaanxi Province, China
Xiao-Dong Han, Ai-Hong Wang, Xiao-Bin Liu, Department of Medicine, Yan’an University, Yan’an 716000, Shaanxi Province, China
Author contributions: Fu ZY designed the research, performed the major experiments, and wrote the paper; Han XD prepared the extract, performed the majority of the experiments and is the co-first author of the paper; Wang AH performed the reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction and agarose gel electrophoresis studies. Liu XB coordinated the research and analyzed the data.
Supported by Shaanxi Provincial High-Level University Construction Project in Basic Medical Sciences, No. 2013SXTS02; and Yan’an Science and Technology Department, No. 2014HM-05.
Institutional review board statement: This study was reviewed and approved by the Academic Committee of Medical College of Yan’an University, Yan’an, China.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest related to this study.
Data sharing statement: No additional unpublished data are available.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Dr. Zhao-Ying Fu, Professor, Institute of Molecular Biology and Immunology, Yan’an University, Yan’an 716000, Shaanxi Province, China. yadxfzy@yau.edu.cn
Telephone: +86-911-2413293 Fax: +86-911-2413293
Received: October 29, 2015
Peer-review started: November 25, 2015
First decision: December 11, 2015
Revised: December 21, 2015
Accepted: January 11, 2016
Article in press: January 11, 2016
Published online: April 7, 2016
Core Tip

Core tip: Latex of Euphorbia esula (E. esula) is used to treat benign growths in traditional Chinese medicine. This led us to design an experiment to establish whether latex of E. esula can cause apoptosis. We found that E. esula extract inhibited proliferation and induced apoptosis in SGC-7901 cells, and that the action was caspase dependent and involved upregulation of Bax gene and downregulation of Bcl2 gene.