| Summary: | 碩士 === 長榮大學 === 醫學研究所 === 104 === The Ministry of Health and Welfare, National Health Department, has recently identified malignant tumors as the leading cause of death in Taiwan. Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) is the most common malignant brain cancer, which accounts for more than half of all brain tumors. GBM has a high mortality rate and is recurrent and resistant to chemotherapy. Common cancer therapies, including surgery, chemotherapy, and targeted therapy, induce many side effects on normal cells and tissues. Extracts of herbal or natural products have proved to be complementary medicine with fewer side effects than chemotherapy drugs. Cucurbitacin E (CuE), a tetracyclic triterpene extracted from the climbing stem of melon, is shown to have anti-inflammatory and anti-cytotoxic responses and inhibitory effects on cancer cell growth.
In this study, we investigated the anti-tumor effects of CuE in human brain cancer cell lines (GBM 8401, U87-MG). Cell survival was analyzed using the MTT assay. Our results showed that the GBM cell lines treated with CuE had significantly inhibited cell growth. CuE treatment was found to induced cell cycle G2/M phase arrest but not apoptosis or necrosis in the human brain cancer cell lines.
The expression profile of G2 /M phase-associated proteins, such as CDC2 and cyclin B, and p38/JNK pathway regulation was analyzed by Western blotting. Our findings indicated that the expression of these proteins is downregulated in the GBM cell lines by CuE treatment. CuE may be an effective candidate for brain cancer treatment or adjuvant chemotherapy. Further, it may provide a new direction in brain cancer prevention and treatment.
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