Endometrial cancer is a common female reproductive tract malignancy. In Taiwan, the incidence of this cancer has caught up with cervical cancer and has become the first in female genital tract cancer. This cancer has been a serious threat to women's health and life, and its morbidity and mortality rate is still increasing. Surgery treatment is the major treatment for endometrial cancer, and in combination with adjuvant therapy, including radiation therapy or chemotherapy, according to the severity of patients. However, these two treatments usually have side effects. Folk use of traditional Chinese herbal medicine to help reducing the side effects from orthodox cancer treatment and the prevention of cancer is very common in Taiwan, but it is lack of scientific evidence. This project aims to examine the suppression effect of Antrodia cinnamomea fruiting body extract (AFE) on endometrial cancer cells. It is expected to provide scientific evidences to support AFE as a preventive or adjuvant treatment of endometrial cancer.
A. cinnamomea is a unique medicinal fungus in Taiwan. A. cinnamomea has the biological functions as anti-tumor, immuno-modulation, anti-virus, anti-allergy, anti-hypertensive, inhibition of platelet aggregation, anti-hypoglycemic, cholesterol reduction, hepatoprotection, anti-fatigue and so on. Although a few of scientific literature has reported the inhibitory effects of AFE on liver cancer, lung cancer, leukemia and ovarian cancer, to our best of knowledge, there is still no related report on endometrial cancer. Therefore, this project plans to investigate the effect of AFE on RL95-2 and HEC-1A endometrial cancer cells, including the cytotoxicity, inhibitory effects on cell migration and cell invasion, as well as their molecular pathways. The project can be broadly divided into two parts: Firstly, the action of AFE on the promotion of cell death, including cell necrosis or apoptosis, will be identified and its influence on the gene signaling pathways will be examined. Secondly, the effects of AFE on the inhibition of migration and invasion of endometrial cancer cells and their molecular mechanisms will be studied. Hence, the potential of AFE to be a complementary reagent for endometrial cancer treatment can then be evaluated.
The results revealed that AFE had a significant cytotoxic effect on endometrial carcinoma. This study shows that AFE can inhibit cell wound healing and cell migration in a dose-dependent manner in endometrial cancer cell lines, RL95-2 cells. In the protein expression, the results revealed that AFE can reduced the expression of MMP-2 and MMP-9 by inhibited the protein expression of phosphorylated p38, JNK, ERK and NF-κB, thereby inhibiting the proliferation and migration of RL95-2 cells.
Keywords: Endometrial cancer cells, Antrodia cinnamomea, inhibition of cell proliferation, cell migration, cell invasion.
