Pien Tze Huang (PZH) is a well-known traditional Chinese formulation and has long been used as an alternative remedy for cancers in China and Southeast Asia. Recently, antitumor activity of PZH on several tumors have been increasingly reported, but its antitumor activity and the possible action mechanism on osteosarcoma remains unclear. After treatment with PZH, cell viability of MG-63 cells was dose-dependently inhibited compared to control cells. Moreover, a DNA ladder characteristic of apoptosis was observed in the cells treated with PZH, especially 500 μg/mL, 750 μg/mL. Further investigation showed that PZH treatments led to activation of caspase cascades and changes of apoptotic mediators Bcl2, Bax, and Bcl-xL expression. In addition, our results suggested that PZH activated PI3K/Akt signal pathway, and the phosphorylation of Akt and ERK1/2 were associated with the induction of apoptotic signaling. These results revealed that PZH possesses antitumoral activity on human osteosarcoma MG63 cells by manipulating apoptotic signaling and multiple pathways. It is suggested that PZH alone or combined with regular antitumor drugs may be beneficial as osteosarcoma treatments.
Keywords: Bax; Bcl-2; PI3K; Pien Tze Huang; caspase-3; caspase-9; osteosarcoma; p-Akt.