Effect of Berberine on cell proliferation and apoptosis in gastric carcinoma cells

Objective::To investigate the effect of Berberine on the proliferation and apoptosis in two gastric cancer cell lines and one gastric epithelial cell line GES,and to elucidate the underlying mechanism.Methods:MTT assay was adopted to detect the proliferation state of cells,and FCM was performed to found the alterations of cell cycle and apoptosis.Furthermore,we examined the expression of proteins which were associated with cell cycle and apoptosis by Western blotting.Results:The growth of gastric cancer cells were inhibited by Berberine(P0.05);Berberine induced a dose-dependent inhibition of cell growth in all three cell lines,and 50μg/ml of Berberine induced 81.3% growth inhibition in gastric cancer cells.As shown by flow cytometry,a low concentration of Berberine(10μg/ml) could cause G0/G1 cell cycle arrest and cell apoptosis(P0.05).The result of Western blot indicated that Berberine suppressed the protein expression of Bcl-2,and up-regulate the protein expression of Bax and p53 in gastric cancer cells in a time-and dose-dependent manner.Conclusion:Berberine inhibits the growth of gastric cancer cells by inducing cell cycle arrest and apoptosis.The underlying mechanism was partly due to the down-regulaion of Bcl-2 and the up-regulation of Bax and p53 in a time-and dose-dependent manner.