Proscillaridin A induces apoptosis, inhibits STAT3 activation and augments doxorubicin toxicity in prostate cancer cells.

Proscillaridin A induces apoptosis, inhibits STAT3 activation and augments doxorubicin toxicity in prostate cancer cells. Int J Med Sci. 2018;15(8):832-839 Authors: He Y, Khan M, Yang J, Yao M, Yu S, Gao H Abstract Cardiac glycosides are natural compounds used for the treatment of congestive heart failure and cardiac arrhythmias. Recently, they have been reported to exhibit anticancer activity. Proscillaridin A (PSN-A), a cardiac glycoside constituent of Urginea maritima has been shown to exhibit anticancer activity. However, the cellular targets and anticancer mechanism of PSN-A in various cancers including prostate cancer remain largely unexplored. In the present study, we have shown that PSN-A inhibits proliferation and induces apoptosis in prostate cancer cells in a dose-dependent manner. Further mechanistic study have shown that anticancer activity of PSN-A in prostate cancer cells is associated with ROS generation, Bcl-2 family proteins modulation, mitochondrial membrane potential disruption and ultimately activation of caspase-3 and cleavage of PARP. Moreover, we found that PSN-A inhibits JAK2/STAT3 signaling and augments doxorubicin toxicity in prostate cancer cells. Of note, LNCaP cells were found to be more sensitive to PSN-A treatment as compared to DU145 cells. Taken together, the data provided first evidence of the anticancer activity and possible molecular mechanism of PSN-A in prostate cancer. Further study is needed t...
Source: International Journal of Medical Sciences - Category: Biomedical Science Tags: Int J Med Sci Source Type: research