Enhancement of taxol-induced apoptosis by inhibition of NF-κB with ursorlic acid

Taxol is known to inhibit cell growth and triggers significant apoptosis in various cancer cells, and activation of proliferation factor NF-κB during Taxol-induced apoptosis is regarded as a main reason resulting in tumor cells resistance to Taxol. It has been found that ursorlic acid can inhibit the activation of NF-κB. In order to study whether ursorlic acid can enhance the Taxol-induced apoptosis, we use fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) technique and probe SCAT3 to compare the difference of caspase-3 activation between Taxol alone and Taxol combined ursorlic acid. With laser scanning confocal microscopy, we find that ursorlic acid, a nontoxic food component, sensitizes ASTC-a-1 cells more efficiently to Taxol-induced apoptosis by advanced activation of caspase 3. The result also suggests that there would be a synergistic effect between Taxol and ursorlic acid, and the more detailed mechanism of synergistic effect needs to be clarified further, such as the correlations among NF-κB, Akt, caspase 8, which leads to the advanced activation of caspase 3 during combined treatment of Taxol and ursorlic acid. Moreover, this may be a new way to improve Taxol-dependent tumor therapy.