Basic Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2021. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Clin Cases. Jun 26, 2021; 9(18): 4542-4552
Published online Jun 26, 2021. doi: 10.12998/wjcc.v9.i18.4542
Tetramethylpyrazine inhibits proliferation of colon cancer cells in vitro
Hua Li, Yan-Xu Hou, Yu Yang, Qing-Qiang He, Tian-Hua Gao, Xiao-Feng Zhao, Zhi-Bin Huo, Shu-Bo Chen, Deng-Xiang Liu
Hua Li, Yan-Xu Hou, Qing-Qiang He, Tian-Hua Gao, Xiao-Feng Zhao, Zhi-Bin Huo, Shu-Bo Chen, Deng-Xiang Liu, Institute of Cancer Control, Xingtai People’s Hospital, Xingtai 054001, Hebei Province, China
Yu Yang, School of First Clinical Medicine, Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine, Nanjing 210029, Jiangsu Province, China
Author contributions: Li H, Hou YX and Yang Y contributed equally to this work; Chen SB and Liu DX designed the research; Li H and Yang Y analyzed the data and drafted the manuscript; Hou YX revised the manuscript critically for important intellectual content and contributed to data analysis; He QQ, Gao TH, Zhao XF, and Huo ZB helped draft the manuscript; all authors read and approved the final manuscript.
Institutional review board statement: Our study was not involving human and animal subjects.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare no conflict of interest related to this manuscript.
Data sharing statement: No additional data are available.
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: http://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Deng-Xiang Liu, PhD, Academic Research, Chief Doctor, Institute of Cancer Control, Xingtai People’s Hospital, No. 16 Hongxing Street, Xingtai 054001, Hebei Province, China. dengxianglfangliao@163.com
Received: January 14, 2021
Peer-review started: January 14, 2021
First decision: March 15, 2021
Revised: March 27, 2021
Accepted: April 22, 2021
Article in press: April 22, 2021
Published online: June 26, 2021
Processing time: 148 Days and 1.3 Hours
Abstract
BACKGROUND

Colon cancer is one of the most common malignancies worldwide, and chemotherapy is a widely used strategy in colon cancer clinical therapy. However, chemotherapy resistance is a major cause of disease recurrence and progression in colon cancer, and thus novel drugs for treatment are urgently needed. Tetramethylpyrazine (TMP), a component of the traditional Chinese medicine Chuanxiong Hort, has been proven to exhibit a beneficial effect in tumors.

AIM

To investigate the potential anticancer activity of TMP in colon cancer and its underlying mechanisms.

METHODS

Colon cancer cells were incubated with different concentrations of TMP. Cell viability was evaluated by crystal violet staining assay and cell counting kit-8 assay, and cell apoptosis and cell cycle were assessed by flow cytometry.

RESULTS

TMP significantly inhibited the proliferation of colon cancer cells in a dose- and time-dependent manner. In addition, flow cytometry revealed that TMP induced cell cycle arrest at the G0/G1 phase. TMP treatment caused early stage apoptosis in SW480 cells, whereas it caused late stage apoptosis in HCT116 cells.

CONCLUSION

Our studies demonstrated that TMP inhibits the proliferation of colon cancer cells in a dose- and time-dependent manner by inducing apoptosis and arresting the cell cycle at the G0/G1 phase. Our findings suggest that TMP might serve as a potential novel therapeutic drug in the treatment of human colon cancer.

Keywords: Tetramethylpyrazine; Colon cancer; Apoptosis; Cell proliferation; Chemotherapy; Cell cycle

Core Tip: Colon cancer is one of the most common malignancies worldwide, and chemotherapy is a widely used strategy in colon cancer clinical therapy. However, many patients eventually relapse and develop drug resistance and chemotherapy resistance. This is one of the main causes of chemotherapeutic failure. Tetramethylpyrazine (TMP) has been proven to exhibit a beneficial effect in many types of malignant tumors. Here, we find out that TMP can induce apoptosis and inhibits proliferation of colon cancer cells, suggesting that TMP might serve as a potential novel therapeutic drug in the treatment of human colon cancer.