Hedyotis diffusa Willd. Suppresses Hepatocellular Carcinoma via Downregulating AKT/mTOR Pathways

Lingli Huang; Hui Xu; Tianyu Wu; Gaofeng Li

doi:10.1155/2021/5210152

Hedyotis diffusa Willd. Suppresses Hepatocellular Carcinoma via Downregulating AKT/mTOR Pathways

Evid Based Complement Alternat Med. 2021 Sep 4:2021:5210152. doi: 10.1155/2021/5210152. eCollection 2021.

Authors

Lingli Huang¹, Hui Xu², Tianyu Wu¹, Gaofeng Li¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Oncology, Zhuzhou Hospital Affiliated to Xiangya School of Medicine, Central South University, Zhuzhou, China.
² Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430030, China.

Abstract

Objective: Hedyotis diffusa Willd. (HDW) is a famous Chinese herbal medicine, traditionally used to treat cancer in China. Currently, the clinically used drugs for the treatment of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) still have poor efficacy and have many side effects. HDW has fewer side effects after taking it, so this study explores the inhibitory effect of HDW on HCC, which may become a promising drug for the treatment of HCC.

Methods: HCC cell lines such as SMMC-7721, SK-hep1, and Hep-G2 were treated with Hedyotis diffusa Willd. (HDW), after which migration was detected via transwell, while the proliferation of these cells was detected via MTT, CCK-8, and colony formation assays. Furthermore, protein levels were evaluated by western blotting, and Hep-G2 cells were implanted in nude mice to establish a xenograft model to evaluate the antitumor effect of the drug.

Results: HDW exhibited the ability to inhibit the proliferation and migration of HCC cells. And its anticancer mechanism in hepatocellular carcinoma may be via AKT/mTOR pathway. Moreover, the drug use of HDW in the mouse model system has achieved a good effect. Importantly, it did not cause significant weight loss or hepatorenal toxicity.

Conclusion: HDW can suppress the activation of the AKT/mTOR pathway in HCC cells, which may bring new light for the treatment of this kind of malignant tumor, but its exact mechanism still needs to be further explored.