2Tengzhou Central People’s Hospital, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Tengzhou, Shandong 277500, P.R. China
3Linyi People’s Hospital, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Linyi, Shandong 276000, P.R. China
4Binzhou Medical School Affiliated Hospital, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Binzhou, Shandong, P.R. China
5Shandong University, School of Life Science, Jinan, Shandong, P.R. China
* To whom correspondence should be addressed.
Received December 4, 2016; Revision received May 4, 2017
Epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) has the highest mortality among various types of gynecological malignancies. Most patients die of metastasis and recurrence due to cisplatin resistance. Thus, it is urgent to develop novel therapies to cure this disease. CCK-8 assay showed that nigericin exhibited strong cytotoxicity on A2780 and SKOV3 cell lines. Flow cytometry indicated that nigericin could induce cell cycle arrest at G0/G1 phase and promote cell apoptosis. Boyden chamber assay revealed that nigericin could inhibit migration and invasion in a dose-dependent manner by suppressing epithelial–mesenchymal transition (EMT) in EOC cells. These effects were mediated, at least partly, by the Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathway. Our results demonstrated that nigericin could inhibit EMT during cell invasion and metastasis through the canonical Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathway. Nigericin may prove to be a novel therapeutic strategy that is effective in patients with metastatic EOC.
KEY WORDS: epithelial ovarian cancer, nigericin, cell cycle, epithelial–mesenchymal transitionDOI: 10.1134/S0006297917080089