Gambogic Acid Induced Apoptosis in Human Hepatoma SMMC-7721 Cells with p53 and Bax Up-regulated

AIM: To investigate Gambogic acid(GA) induced apoptosis in hepatoma cell lines and its mechanism. METHOD and RESULT: MTT assay showed that the proliferation of SMMC-7721 and QGY-7701 cells were markedly inhibited by GA in dose-dependent manner, while for the normal liver L-02 cells, the effect was lower. Under inverted-microscope and electronic microscope, typical morphological changes of apoptosis were observed, including condensed chromatin and a reduction in volume. RT-PCR and Western blotting were used to detect the changes of bax in mRNA and changes of bax and p53 in protein levels. The results indicated that the expression of bax and p53 were up-regulated by GA. Additional DNA fragmentation assay showed that GA induced apoptosis on SMMC-7721 nude mice xenografts. CONCLUSION: GA induced apoptosis in human hepatoma cells may be related with up-regulating the expressions of bax and p53.