Artesunate induces apoptosis, inhibits cell proliferation, and decreases growth hormone levels in pituitary tumor

作者：Zhou, Yujia; Wang, Gesheng^*; Du, Yong; Liu, Jialin; Dong, Xiaobo; Wang, Lei; Liu, Guiying; Zhang, Yanyan

来源：International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Medicine, 2017, 10(7): 10382-10388.

• Pituitary tumor
• growth hormone
• artesunate
• apoptosis
• caspase

Artesunate (ART) is a kind of drug with an endoperoxide bridge to generate radicals for killing cancer cells and has been shown to act anti-tumor effect in different types of tumors. However, few studies have been reported in pituitary tumors. In this study, we aimed to investigate its effect and mechanisms of action in mouse pituitary adenoma AtT-20 cell line. The MTT assay was used to assess AtT-20 cell proliferation. Flow cytometry was used to analyze AtT-20 cell apoptosis and cell cycle. The expression of growth hormone (GH) protein and secreted GH were measured by western blot and ELISA assay, respectively. MTT assay showed that ART inhibited AtT-20 cell proliferation in a dose-dependent manner with IC50 of (32.58 +/- 3.21) mu M. ART induced apoptosis and blocked AtT-20 at G2/M phase. The pan-caspase inhibitor V-ZAD-FMK partly attenuated the inhibitory effect of ART. Additionally, ART can inhibit GH synthesis and secretion by western blot and ELISA. Thus, we propose ART as a probably anti-tumor candidate drug in the treatment of pituitary adenoma.

• 出版日期2017
• 单位北京中医药大学