bufothionine and Neoplasms

Cinobufacini is extracted from the skins and parotid venom glands of the toad for treating symptoms like swelling and pain in ancient times. Nowadays, cinobifucini injection has also achieved satisfactory therapeutic effects on hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) in China.. Our previous work found that bufothionine, an alkaloid abundant in cinobufacini injection, induced mitochondria-mediated apoptosis. In this work, the underlying effects of bufothionine on autophagy in HCC and its possible dependent pathway were investigated.. In vitro, CCK-8 and Hoechst staining assays showed that bufothionine inhibited SMMC7721 cell proliferation and promoted apoptosis at 100 μM. In vivo, bufothionine relieved symptoms of H. This is the first report showing that bufothionine might induce autophagy in HCC by inhibiting JAK2/STAT3 pathway, presenting a possible anti-cancer mechanism of bufothionine in cinobufacini injection.

Topics: Animals; Antineoplastic Agents, Phytogenic; Apoptosis; Autophagy; Bufanolides; Cell Line, Tumor; Cell Proliferation; Humans; Indole Alkaloids; Interleukin-6; Janus Kinase 2; Liver Neoplasms, Experimental; Male; Mice; Neoplasms; Quinolinium Compounds; Signal Transduction; STAT3 Transcription Factor