Magnolol Triggers Caspase-Mediated Apoptotic Cell Death in Human Oral Cancer Cells through JNK1/2 and p38 Pathways

Yi-Tzu Chen; Chiao-Wen Lin; Chun-Wen Su; Wei-En Yang; Chun-Yi Chuang; Shih-Chi Su; Ming-Ju Hsieh; Shun-Fa Yang

doi:10.3390/biomedicines9101295

Magnolol Triggers Caspase-Mediated Apoptotic Cell Death in Human Oral Cancer Cells through JNK1/2 and p38 Pathways

Biomedicines. 2021 Sep 22;9(10):1295. doi: 10.3390/biomedicines9101295.

Authors

Yi-Tzu Chen^{1

2

3}, Chiao-Wen Lin^{2

3}, Chun-Wen Su^{4

5}, Wei-En Yang^{4

5}, Chun-Yi Chuang^{6

7}, Shih-Chi Su^{8

9}, Ming-Ju Hsieh^{10

11}, Shun-Fa Yang^{4

5}

Affiliations

¹ School of Dentistry, Chung Shan Medical University, Taichung 402, Taiwan.
² Institute of Oral Sciences, Chung Shan Medical University, Taichung 402, Taiwan.
³ Department of Dentistry, Chung Shan Medical University Hospital, Taichung 402, Taiwan.
⁴ Institute of Medicine, Chung Shan Medical University, Taichung 402, Taiwan.
⁵ Department of Medical Research, Chung Shan Medical University Hospital, Taichung 402, Taiwan.
⁶ School of Medicine, Chung Shan Medical University, Taichung 402, Taiwan.
⁷ Department of Otolaryngology, Chung Shan Medical University Hospital, Taichung 402, Taiwan.
⁸ Whole-Genome Research Core Laboratory of Human Diseases, Chang Gung Memorial Hospital, Keelung 204, Taiwan.
⁹ Department of Dermatology, Drug Hypersensitivity Clinical and Research Center, Chang Gung Memorial Hospital, Linkou 333, Taiwan.
¹⁰ Oral Cancer Research Center, Changhua Christian Hospital, Changhua 500, Taiwan.
¹¹ Graduate Institute of Biomedical Sciences, China Medical University, Taichung 404, Taiwan.

Abstract

Magnolol is a natural compound extracted from Chinese herbal medicine and can induce apoptosis in numerous types of cancer cells. However, the molecular mechanisms of magnolol in oral cancer are still unclear. In this study, we investigated the anti-cancer effects and underlying mechanisms of magnolol in human oral cancer cell lines. Our results exhibited that magnolol inhibited the cell proliferation via inducing the sub-G1 phase and cell apoptosis of HSC-3 and SCC-9 cells. The human apoptosis array and Western blot assay showed that magnolol increased the expression of cleaved caspase-3 proteins and heme oxygenase-1 (HO-1). Moreover, we proved that magnolol induces apoptosis in oral cancer cell lines via the c-Jun N-terminal kinase (JNK)1/2 and p38 pathways. Overall, the current study supports the role for magnolol as a therapeutic approach for oral cancer through JNK1/2- and p38-mediated caspase activation.

Keywords: JNK1/2; apoptosis; magnolol; oral cancer; p38.