Research Paper|Volume 12, Issue 24|pp 25730—25743

Cardamonin induces G2/M phase arrest and apoptosis through inhibition of NF-κB and mTOR pathways in ovarian cancer

Jiang Ruibin¹, Jin Bo², Wan Danying¹, Feng Jianguo¹, Gu Linhui¹

¹The Cancer Hospital of the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences (Zhejiang Cancer Hospital), Institute of Basic Medicine and Cancer (IBMC), Chinese Academy of Sciences, Hangzhou 310022, Zhejiang, China
²College of Life Science, Zhejiang Chinese Medical University, Hangzhou 310053, Zhejiang, China

Received: March 5, 2020Accepted: October 5, 2020Published: November 25, 2020

Copyright: © 2020 Ruibin et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Abstract

Cardamonin, a natural chalcone, is reported to induce apoptosis and inhibit cancer cell growth. However, the mechanisms underlying the therapeutic effects of cardamonin remain to be established. Here, we have focused on cardamonin-induced apoptosis in ovarian cancer cells, both in vitro and in vivo. The effects of cardamonin on cell cycle patterns and apoptotic responses of cells were assessed in this study. Western blot was employed to determine the effects of cardamonin on expression of cell cycle- and apoptosis-related proteins. Our results indicate that cardamonin suppresses cancer cell growth by inducing G2/M phase arrest and apoptosis through targeted inhibition of NF-κB and mTOR pathways. The collective findings provide novel insights into the pathways responsible for the anticancer effects of cardamonin and support its potential utility as a clinical therapeutic agent for ovarian cancer.