Asclepiasterol, a novel C21 steroidal glycoside derived from Asclepias curassavica, reverses tumor multidrug resistance by down-regulating P-glycoprotein expression.

2016 
// Wei-Qi Yuan 1, 2, * , Rong-Rong Zhang 1, * , Jun Wang 1 , Yan Ma 2 , Wen-Xue Li 2 , Ren-Wang Jiang 1 , Shao-Hui Cai 1 1 College of Pharmacy, Jinan University, Guangzhou, 510632, P. R. China 2 Department of Toxicology, Guangzhou Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Guangzhou, 511430, P. R. China * These authors have contributed equally to this work Correspondence to: Wen-Xue Li, email: Liwenxue_2000@163.com Ren-Wang Jiang, email: trwjiang@jnu.edu.cn Shao-Hui Cai, email: csh5689@sina.com Keywords: asclepiasterol, steroid, multidrug resistance (MDR), P-glycoprotein, phosphorylation of ERK1/2 (P-ERK) Received: December 10, 2015     Accepted: April 02, 2016     Published: April 25, 2016 ABSTRACT Multidrug resistance (MDR) mediated by P-glycoprotein (P-gp) is a major cause of cancer therapy failure. In this study, we identified a novel C 21 steroidal glycoside, asclepiasterol, capable of reversing P-gp-mediated MDR. Asclepiasterol (2.5 and 5.0μM) enhanced the cytotoxity of P-gp substrate anticancer drugs in MCF-7/ADR and HepG-2/ADM cells. MDR cells were more responsive to paclitaxel in the presence of asclepiasterol, and colony formation of MDR cells was only reduced upon treatment with a combination of asclepiasterol and doxorubicin. Consistent with these findings, asclepiasterol treatment increased the intracellular accumulation of doxorubicin and rhodamine 123 (Rh123) in MDR cells. Asclepiasterol decreased expression of P-gp protein without stimulating or suppressing MDR1 mRNA levels. Asclepiasterol-mediated P-gp suppression caused inhibition of ERK1/2 phosphorylation in two MDR cell types, and EGF, an activator of the MAPK/ERK pathway, reversed the P-gp down-regulation, implicating the MAPK/ERK pathway in asclepiasterol-mediated P-gp down-regulation. These results suggest that asclepiasterol could be developed as a modulator for reversing P-gp-mediated MDR in P-gp-overexpressing cancer variants.
    • Correction
    • Source
    • Cite
    • Save
    • Machine Reading By IdeaReader
    60
    References
    16
    Citations
    NaN
    KQI
    []