Antitumor effects and mechanisms of total saponin and total flavonoid extracts from Patrinia villosa (Thunb.) Juss

Patrinia villosa (Thunb.) Juss is a Chinese edible herbal widely used in China for treatment of carbuncles, acute appendicitis, hepatitis and stasis for hundreds of years. In this study, the antitumor effects and the possible mechanisms of total saponin extract from P. villosa (SPV) and total flavonoid extract from P. villosa (FPV) were investigated in four cancer cell lines including mouse melanoma cell line B16, MCF-7 human breast cancer cells, Hela human epithelial cervical cancer cells and L1210 mouse lymphocytic leukemia cells. The antiproliferative effects of SPV and FPV on these cells were observed by 3-(4,5-Dimethyithiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyl-tetrazolium bromide (MTT) assay. The cell cycle was detected by flow cytometry. The expression of CDK4 and cyclin D1 were measured by western blot. The results of MTT assay suggested that FPV showed much stronger antiproliferative effects on L1210 cells in a dose-dependent manner. On the other hand, SPV showed better antiproliferative effect than FPV on the other three cell lines in a dose-dependent manner. The mechanism of antitumor effect of SPV and FPV might be the inhibition of expression of CDK4 and cyclin D1, and accordingly arrested four cancer cell lines in G0/G1 phase, decreased the number of cells in S phase, and finally induced antiproliferative effect. In summary, pharmacological data obtained from this study suggested that SPV and FPV possessed cancer chemopreventive potential on different types of cancer cells. These results were much more favorable on bioactivity-guided isolations of SPV and FPV.