• The Journal of Internal Korean Medicine
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.33-42
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• 2011

Background : Despite recent advances in cancer management, prognosis of ovarian cancer is poor. Anticancer effects of herbal medicine, such as Euonymus alatus Sieb, Oldenlandia diffusa (Willd.) Roxburgh, and Orostachys japonicus A. Berger, have been reported in treatment of ovarian and cervical cancers, but the systematic approaches to explain their molecular mechanism(s) have not yet been established. Objectives : To establish a basis of understanding for anti-cancer mechanisms of herbal medicine, we profiled protein expression in human ovarian and cervical cancer cells treated with the extracts from Euonymus alatus Sieb, Oldenlandia diffusa (Willd.) Roxburgh and Orostachys japonicus A. Berger. Methods : Human ovarian cancer cell line NIH:OVCAR-3, and human cervical cancer cell line HeLa were employed in the present study. Whole protein was obtained from the cells harvested at 48 hours after the treatment with herbal water-extract, and analyzed by 2DE-based proteomic approach. Results : Various changes of protein expression induced by the herbal treatment were monitored : down-regulation of molecular chaperone (calreticulin variant), glycolytic enzymes (D-3-phosphoglycerate dehydrogenase, glyceraldehyde 3-phosphate dehydrogenase and alpha-enolase), RNA processing molecules (hnRNP A2/B1), and antioxidant protein (peroxiredoxin 1). Conclusions : Repression of glycolysis has been accepted as the mechanism to increase anticancer reagent's effect. Thus, down-regulation of glycolytic enzymes by the herbal extracts suggested a possible synergistic effect of herbs in the presence of platinum-based therapeutics. In further study, as well as the synergistic effect of the herbs, it has to be further validated whether artificial regulation of hnRNP A2/B1 in ovarian cancer cells affects various cancer survival factors, since RNA processing can be interrupted by deranged expression of hnRNP subtypes, and it results in an inhibition of cancer cell growth.