The prognosis of liver cancer was inferior among tumors. New medicine treatments are urgently needed. In this study, a novel exopolysaccharide EPS364 was purified from Vibrio alginolyticus 364, which was isolated from a deep-sea cold seep of the South China Sea. Further research showed that EPS364 consisted of mannose, glucosamine, gluconic acid, galactosamine and arabinose with a molar ratio of 5:9:3.4:0.5:0.8. The relative molecular weight of EPS364 was 14.8 kDa. Our results further revealed that EPS364 was a β-linked and phosphorylated polysaccharide. Notably, EPS364 exhibited a significant antitumor activity, with inducing apoptosis, dissipation of the mitochondrial membrane potential (MMP) and generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) in Huh7.5 liver cancer cells. Proteomic and quantitative real-time PCR analyses indicated that EPS364 inhibited cancer cell growth and adhesion via targeting the FGF19-FGFR4 signaling pathway. These findings suggest that EPS364 is a promising antitumor agent for pharmacotherapy.
Keywords: FGF19-FGFR4 signaling; antitumor; cell adhesion; cell growth; exopolysaccharide.