Quercetin, a dietary flavonoid found in fruits and vegetables, has been described as a substance with many anti-cancer properties in a variety of preclinical investigations. In the present study, we demonstrate that 2D and 3D melanoma models exhibit not only different sensitivities to quercetin, but also opposite, cancer-promoting effects when metastatic melanoma spheroids are treated with quercetin. Higher concentrations of quercetin reduce melanoma growth in three tested cell lines, whereas low concentrations induce the opposite effect in metastatic melanoma spheroids but not in the non-metastatic cell line. High (>12.5 µM) or low (<6.3 µM) quercetin concentrations decrease or enhance cell viability, spheroid size, and cell proliferation, respectively. Additionally, melanoma cells cultivated in 2D already show significant caspase 3 activity at very low concentrations (>0.4 µM), whereas in 3D spheroids apoptotic cells, caspase 3 activity can only be detected in concentrations ≥12.5 µM. Further, we show that the tumor promoting or repressing effect in the 3D metastatic melanoma spheroids are likely to be elicited by a precisely controlled regulation of Nrf2/ARE-mediated cytoprotective genes, as well as ERK and NF-κB phosphorylation. According to the results obtained here, further studies are needed to better characterize the mechanisms of action underlying the pro- and anti-carcinogenic effects of quercetin on human melanomas.
Keywords: 3D spheroids; Nrf2 signaling; melanoma; phenotypic drug screening; quercetin.