Li FY, Wang Y, Zhang YJ. β-elemene inhibits bladder cancer cell through the expression of cell membrane protein GM3. World J Clin Urol 2025; 14(2): 109933 [DOI: 10.5410/wjcu.v14.i2.109933]
Corresponding Author of This Article
Yong-Jun Zhang, Associate Chief Physician, Department of Integration of Traditional Chinese and Western Medicine, Zhejiang Cancer Hospital, No. 1 Banshan Eastern Road, Hangzhou 310022, Zhejiang Province, China. zhangyongjun770323@163.com
Research Domain of This Article
Urology & Nephrology
Article-Type of This Article
Basic Study
Open-Access Policy of This Article
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/
World J Clin Urol. Aug 12, 2025; 14(2): 109933 Published online Aug 12, 2025. doi: 10.5410/wjcu.v14.i2.109933
β-elemene inhibits bladder cancer cell through the expression of cell membrane protein GM3
Fang-Yin Li, Ying Wang, Yong-Jun Zhang
Fang-Yin Li, Department of Urologic Surgery, Zhejiang Cancer Hospital, Hangzhou 310022, Zhejiang Province, China
Ying Wang, Department of Gynecological Oncology, Zhejiang Cancer Hospital, Hangzhou 310022, Zhejiang Province, China
Yong-Jun Zhang, Department of Integration of Traditional Chinese and Western Medicine, Zhejiang Cancer Hospital, Hangzhou 310022, Zhejiang Province, China
Author contributions: Li FY and Zhang YJ were responsible for manuscript design and writing; Zhang YJ and Ying Wang conducted the experiments, performed statistical analysis, and contributed to manuscript writing; All authors have read and approved the final manuscript.
Supported by the Zhejiang Provincial Traditional Chinese Medicine Foundation, No. 2021ZA021 and No. 2022ZZ005.
Institutional review board statement: Institutional review board statement of the research has not been obtained as it is performed in vitro.
Institutional animal care and use committee statement: Institutional animal care and use committee statement of the research has not been obtained as it is performed in vitro.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All authors declare no competing interests. All the listed authors have read and approved the submitted manuscript.
Data sharing statement: The datasets analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
Open Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (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: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Yong-Jun Zhang, Associate Chief Physician, Department of Integration of Traditional Chinese and Western Medicine, Zhejiang Cancer Hospital, No. 1 Banshan Eastern Road, Hangzhou 310022, Zhejiang Province, China. zhangyongjun770323@163.com
Received: May 26, 2025 Revised: June 21, 2025 Accepted: July 29, 2025 Published online: August 12, 2025 Processing time: 77 Days and 13.7 Hours
Abstract
BACKGROUND
Β-elemene is widely used to treat a variety of cancers, including bladder cancer (BLCA). However, the anti-cancer target, effective constituents and mechanism was unclear.
AIM
To investigate the therapeutic effect and underlying mechanism of β-elemene in BLCA.
METHODS
We first mined the GEPIA2 database to explore the association between the GM3 (ST3 Beta-Galactoside Alpha-2,3-Sialyltransferase 5, GM3, ST3GAL5) gene and BLCA. Second, we performed in vitro experiments using BLCA cells to verify the inhibitory effect and targets therapy of β-elemene on BLCA.
RESULTS
Our results revealed a significantly reduced expression of GM3 in BLCA tissues. Notably, BLCA patients with higher GM3 expression exhibited prolonged overall survival and disease-free survival. In vitro studies demonstrated that β-elemene significantly affected BLCA cell viability, leading to a marked upregulation of GM3 expression, increased apoptotic cell populations, and a notable reduction in cell migration and invasion. WB analysis showed that β-elemene enhanced GM3 protein expression while simultaneously decreasing phosphorylated epidermal growth factor receptor (p-EGFR) levels. Additionally, overexpression or RNAi of GM3 in BLCA cells resulted in corresponding changes in epidermal growth factor receptor and p-EGFR expression levels.
CONCLUSION
This study provides preliminary evidence for further investigation into the molecular mechanisms of β-elemene in the treatment of BLCA.
Core Tip: We believe that our study makes a significant contribution to the literature because GEPIA2 database deep mining revealed that GM3 was poorly expressed in bladder cancer (BLCA), and this study showed that β-elemene inhibited BLCA cells by increasing GM3 expression. Moreover, cluster analysis showed that GM3 increased cell adhesion and inhibited the invasion and migration of BLCA cells by expressing membrane-related signaling proteins. Further, we believe that this paper will be of interest to the readership of your journal because the use of β-elemene in anti-cancer medication is advantageous owing to its significant anti-tumor activity against various types of cancer and its reduced toxicity, which ensures that its impact on the quality of life of patients with cancer is minimal and the drug is well tolerated. Thus, this study provides a preliminary basis and strong evidence for further research on the underlying molecular mechanisms of β-elemene in the treatment of BLCA.
