Betatrophin can be used as anticancer drug in hcc

Nastaran Monzavi,1,* Seyed jalal zargar,2 Nematollah gheibi,3

1. Department of Cell & Molecular Biology, School of Biology, College of Science, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran
2. Department of Cell & Molecular Biology, School of Biology, College of Science, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran
3. Department of Biothechnoligy, Faculty of Paramedicals, Qazvin University of Medical Sciences, Qazvin, Iran

Abstract

Introduction

Hepatocellular carcinoma (hcc) is one of the most prevalent cancer and is the third reason of cancer-related deaths worldwide. moreover, hcc is a cancer with the poorest prognosis among com¬mon malignant tumors and currently, there are still no effective drugs for the treatment of patients with advanced inoperable liver cancer and any substance with ability of apoptosis induction on hcc cells is undoubtedly worthful. the purpose of this study was treatment of hepg2 cells with the betatrophin, a novel detected protein which has high level expression in hcc.

Methods

e.coli bl21 (de3) and the pet expression system were used for production of recombinant betatrophin. the cytotoxic effect of betatrophin was evaluated by mtt assay and apoptosis was detected by flow cytometry analysis using annexin v-fitc/pi on human liver carcinoma cells (hepg2).

Results

Mtt assay showed that cell growth was inhibited in a time-independent and dose-dependent manner up to 30% and apoptosis analysis revealed that hepg2 cells treatment with betatrophin induced early and late apoptosis up to 7.8 and 14.3%, respectively.

Conclusion

Betatrophin inhibits growth and induces apoptosis of hepg2 cells in concentration of 250 ng/ml partly. it shows that this substance is capable of considering as an anticancer drug after further studies.

Keywords

Hepatocellular carcinoma (hcc), betatrophin, apoptosis, hepg2