Paeoniflorin inhibits cell growth and induces cell cycle arrest through inhibition of FoxM1 in colorectal cancer cells

Abstract

Paeoniflorin (PF) exhibits tumor suppressive functions in a variety of human cancers. However, the function of PF and molecular mechanism in colorectal cancer are elusive. In the present study, we investigated whether PF could exert its antiproliferative activity, anti-migration, and anti-invasive function in colorectal cancer cells. We found that PF inhibited cell growth and induced apoptosis and blocked cell cycle progression in the G0/G1 phase in colorectal cancer cells. Moreover, we found that PF suppressed cell migration and invasion in colorectal cancer cells. FoxM1 has been reported to play an important oncogenic role in human cancers. We also determine whether PF inhibited the expression of FoxM1, leading to its anti-cancer activity. We found that PF treatment in colorectal cancer cells resulted in down-regulation of FoxM1. The rescue experiments showed that overexpression of FoxM1 abrogated the tumor suppressive function induced by PF treatment. Notably, depletion of FoxM1 promoted the anti-tumor activity of PF in colorectal cancer cells. Therefore, inhibition of FoxM1 could participate in the anti-tumor activity of PF in colorectal cancer cells.

Keywords: FoxM1; Paeoniflorin; cell cycle; colorectal cancer; invasion; proliferation.

Figure 1.

PF inhibited cell proliferation and induced apoptosis and cell cycle arrest.

Figure 2.

Inhibitory effects of PF on cell migration and invasion.

Figure 3.

Overexpression of FoxM1 abrogated PF-induced cell growth inhibition and apoptosis.

Figure 4.

Overexpression of FoxM1 abrogated PF-induced inhibition of migration and invasion.

Figure 5.

Knockdown of FoxM1 enhanced PF-mediated cell proliferation inhibition and apoptosis.

Figure 6.

Knockdown of FoxM1 enhanced PF-induced cell migration inhibition.