These studied flavonoids significantly enhances doxorubicin-mediated cell death. - GreenMedInfo Summary
Flavonoids modulate multidrug resistance through wnt signaling in P-glycoprotein overexpressing cell lines.
BMC Cancer. 2018 Nov 26 ;18(1):1168. Epub 2018 Nov 26. PMID: 30477461
S Mohana
BACKGROUND: Wnt signaling has been linked with P-glycoprotein (P-gp) overexpression and which was mainly mediated byβ-catenin nuclear translocation. Flavonoids have already been reported as modulators of the Wnt/β-catenin pathway and hence they may serve as promising agents in the reversal of P-gp mediated cancer multi drug resistance (MDR).
METHODS: In this study, we screened selected flavonoids against Wnt/β-catenin signaling molecules. The binding interaction of flavonoids (theaflavin, quercetin, rutin, epicatechin 3 gallate and tamarixetin) with GSK 3β was determined by molecular docking. Flavonoids on P-gp expression and the components of Wnt signaling in drug-resistant KBCH8-5 cells were analyzed by western blotting and qRT-PCR. The MDR reversal potential of these selected flavonoids against P-gp mediated drug resistance was analyzed by cytotoxicity assay in KBCH8-5 and MCF7/ADR cell lines. The chemosensitizing potential of flavonoids was further analyzed by observing cell cycle arrest in KBCH8-5 cells.
RESULTS: In this study, we observed that the components of Wnt/β-catenin pathway such as Wnt and GSK 3β were activated in multidrug resistant KBCH8-5 cell lines. All the flavonoids selected in this study significantly decreased the expression of Wnt and GSK 3β in KBCH8-5 cells and subsequently modulates P-gp overexpression in this drug-resistant cell line. Further, we observed that these flavonoids considerably decreased the doxorubicin resistance in KBCH8-5 and MCF7/ADR cell lines. The MDR reversal potential of flavonoids were found to be in the order of theaflavin>quercetin>rutin>epicatechin 3 gallate>tamarixetin. Moreover, we observed that flavonoids pretreatment significantly induced the doxorubicin-mediated arrest at the phase of G2/M. Further, the combinations of doxorubicin with flavonoids significantly modulate the expression of drug response genes in KBCH8-5 cells.
CONCLUSION: The present findings illustrate that the studied flavonoids significantly enhances doxorubicin-mediated cell death through modulating P-gp expression pattern by targeting Wnt/β-catenin signaling in drug-resistant KBCH8-5 cells.
