Terrestrosin D inhibits invasion and induces apoptosis through inhibition of STAT3 in anaplastic thyroid carcinoma

Abstract

Background

The prognosis with current management approach of anaplastic thyroid carcinoma (ATC) remains poor, and new effective treatments are greatly needed. Terrestrosin D (TED) is active component of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) Tribulus terrestris L. with anti-tumor and anti-inflammatory activities. However, it remains unclear about the activity and mechanisms of TED in ATC.

Objectives

In this study, the experimental groups included control, DMSO, TED (2.5 μM), and TED (5 μM). We detected cell viability, invasion, migration, and apoptosis to assess the effects of TED on ATC cells in vitro. Next, we performed western blot to determine apoptosis-related proteins and STAT3 protein expression. In addition, the possible mechanism of TED anti-cancer effects on ATC was preliminarily investigated through network pharmacology.

Results

These results showed that TED groups could significantly inhibit cell viability, invasion, migration, and colony formation ability, and promote the cell apoptosis, compared with the DMSO group. Besides, TED obviously downregulated the levels of Bcl-2, and STAT3 protein, increased level of Bax and caspase-3 protein. Network pharmacological analysis showed that 27 intersecting genes were obtained by intersecting TED and ATC target gene sets, of which STAT3 had the best correlation.

Conclusions

We found that TED has strong anti-cancer activities on ATC, which could induce cell apoptosis through the regulation of STAT3. This study provides a new idea to treat ATC.