Title: Arctigenin attenuates tumor metastasis through inhibiting epithelial-mesenchymal transition in hepatocellular carcinoma via suppressing GSK3β-dependent Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathway in vivo and in vitro

Abstract

Arctigenin (ARG) has been reported to be a bioactive lignan from Arctium lappa exerting various activities including anti-cancer, immune-regulation and etc. The present study was aim aimed to investigate the anti-metastasis activity and mechanism of ARG against hepatocellular carcinoma in vitro and in vivo. The results showed that ARG exhibited a significant cytotoxicity effect on the viability of Hep G2 and SMMC 7721 cells (but not on normal liver cells L O 2,). and In addition, the migration and invasion of Hep G2 and SMMC 7721 cells were also remarkably repressed. Furthermore, ARG attenuated Wnt/β-catenin signaling activation, resulting resulted in the down-regulation of β-catenin target genes including c-Myc, Cyclin D1, MMP-9 and ZO-1. Noticeably, ARG attenuated the activation of Wnt/β-catenin through a GSK3β-dependent pathway. Besides, we also found that ARG potentially inhibited epithelial-mesenchymal transition by up-regulating the epithelial and down-regulating the mesenchymal marker proteins. In tumor xenograft nude micevivo, intraperitoneal injectiontreatment of ARG not only significantly inhibited the growth of subcutaneous transplanted transplantation tumor, but also dramatically alleviated the tumor metastasis in liver. Our data demonstrated that ARG exerted anti-epithelial-mesenchymal transitionEMT and anti-metastasis activities against hepatocellular carcinoma, which might make it a candidate for the development ofas a preventive.