[Effects of tetrandrine on proliferation, migration, and invasion of glioblastoma cells].

Glioblastoma is the most common intracranial primary malignant tumor, which leads to the poor quality of life of patients and has a high recurrence rate. Chemotherapy is a vital part in the treatment of this disease. Tetrandrine(Tet) is an active ingredient extracted from the root of the Chinese medicinal plant Stephania tetrandra, which has been proved with a wide range of pharmacological effects including anti-tumor. However, there are few studies regarding the effect of Tet on glioma. In this study, MTT and BrdU assays were employed to detect the effect of Tet on the proliferation of LN229 glioblastoma cells; flow cytometry was used to analyze the cycle distribution and apoptosis; plate cloning assay and soft agar colony formation assay were performed to study the colony formation ability of LN229 cells exposed to Tet; scratch assay and Transwell assay were conducted to detect the ability of migration and invasion; Western blot was adopted to the exploration of the molecular mechanism. The MTT and BrdU assays showed that Tet inhibited the proliferation of LN229 cells in a time-and dose-dependent manner. The plate cloning assay and soft agar colony formation assay showed that Tet weakened the colony formation of LN229 cells in vitro; cytometry assay showed that Tet blocked cells in the G_1 phase and promoted cell apoptosis; scratch and Transwell assays proved that Tet inhibited the migration and invasion of LN229 cells; Western blot results showed that Tet down-regulated the expression levels of CDK2, CDK6, cyclin D1, cyclin E1, snail, slug, vimentin, and N-cadherin, while up-regulated the level of E-cadherin. The results indicate that Tet has a certain inhibitory effect on the proliferation, migration, and invasion of LN229 glioblastoma cells, and such effect may be related to the participation of Tet in the regulation of c-Myc/p27 axis and snail signaling pathway.