Tropical Journal of Pharmaceutical Research

Original Research Article | OPEN ACCESS

Baicalein inhibits the invasion of human cervical cancer cells by inhibiting the hedgehog/Gli signaling pathway

Hai Yang¹, Jiyi Xia², Yan Li³, Yong Cao³, Li Tang³, Xiaolan Yu¹

¹Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, The Affiliated Traditional Chinese Medicine Hospital of South West Medical University; ²School of Medical Information and Engineering, Southwest Medical University; ³Medicine Experimental Center, The Affiliated Hospital of Southwest Medical University, Luzhou, China.

For correspondence:- Xiaolan Yu Email: yuxiaolanwork@163.com Tel:+868303161913

Accepted: 21 December 2019 Published: 31 January 2020

Citation: Yang H, Xia J, Li Y, Cao Y, Tang L, Yu X. Baicalein inhibits the invasion of human cervical cancer cells by inhibiting the hedgehog/Gli signaling pathway. Trop J Pharm Res 2020; 19(1):115-120 doi: 10.4314/tjpr.v19i1.18

© 2020 The authors.
This is an Open Access article that uses a funding model which does not charge readers or their institutions for access and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0) and the Budapest Open Access Initiative (http://www.budapestopenaccessinitiative.org/read), which permit unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited..

Abstract

Purpose: To identify the role of baicalein in human cervical cancer and to determine whether baicalein treatment affects hedgehog/Gli signaling pathway.

Methods: Cell proliferation was evaluated by MTT(3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide) and colony formation assays. Cell death rate was assessed by PI-staining and FACS assay. Furthermore, cell invasion was assessed by Transwell assay while the levels of the key proteins were measured by western blotting analysis.

Results: Baicalein suppressed the viability and proliferation of HeLa cells. The colony formation ability and relative migration rate were significantly decreased in the HeLa cells treated with 50 μM baicalein. Furthermore, the levels of Shh, Gli1, MMP-9, and VEGF declined significantly in baicalein-treated cells.

Conclusion: The results demonstrate that baicalein inhibits the growth and invasiveness of cervical cancer cells partly by suppressing the activation of hedgehog/Gli signaling pathway in a concentration-dependent manner.

Keywords: Cervical cancer, baicalein, hedgehog/Gli pathway, MMP-9