Echinacoside inhibits breast cancer cells by suppressing the Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathway

  • Biochem Biophys Res Commun. 2020 May 21;526(1):170-175. doi: 10.1016/j.bbrc.2020.03.050.
Chenghuai Tang  1 ,  Liuping Gong  1 ,  Lvzi Xu  2 ,  Kaijin Qiu  1 ,  Zhong Zhang  1 ,  Lihua Wan  3
Affiliations
  • 1. Department of Forensic Medicine, Chongqing Medical University, Chongqing, 400016, China.
  • 2. Forensic Identification Center, College of Criminal Investigation, Southwest University of Political Science and Law, Chongqing, 401120, China.
  • 3. Department of Forensic Medicine, Chongqing Medical University, Chongqing, 400016, China. Electronic address: [email protected].
PMID: 32201078 DOI: 10.1016/j.bbrc.2020.03.050
Abstract

Echinacoside, a small molecule derived from the natural herbs Cistanche and Echinacea, shows effective Anticancer abilities, but the mechanism remains unclear. By using colony formation, scratch, and transwell assays in MDA-MB-231 breast Cancer cells, we confirmed the anti-breast Cancer ability of Echinacoside in vitro. In addition, we found that Echinacoside can dose-dependently reduce phosho-LRP6, total LRP6, phosho-Dvl2, active β-catenin, and total β-catenin protein expression level in MDA-MB-231 and MDA-MB-468 cells by western blot. We also detected well-known Wnt targets genes, including LEF1, CD44, and cyclin D1 by Real-Time PCR and western blot, and Echinacoside significantly shows inhibition effect in these two breast Cancer cell lines. Furthermore, we investigated its anti-breast Cancer ability in an MDA-MB-231 xenograft model in vivo. Echinacoside treatment significantly reduced tumor growth, which was accompanied by a reduction in Wnt/β-catenin signaling. In summary, our results demonstrate that Echinacoside can effectively inhibit Wnt/β-catenin signaling, and therefore, it may be a promising therapeutic target to treat breast Cancer.

Keywords
Anti-Breast cancer; Echinacoside; Wnt/β-catenin signaling.
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