Introduction: Ovarian cancer is one of the most common gynecological cancers worldwide. While, therapies against ovarian cancer have not been completely effective, sinomenine has been proved to have anti-tumor activity in various cancer cells. However, study of its anti-ovarian cancer effect is still rare, and the underlying mechanism has not been elucidated. Therefore, we aim to explore the mechanism of sinomenine anti-ovarian cancer.
Materials and Methods: The effect of anti-ovarian cancer HeyA8 cells was analyzed by CCK8 and colony formation assay. The mechanism of sinomenine anti-ovarian cancer was explored via high throughput RNA-seq, and then the target mRNA and protein expression were verified by real-time PCR and Western blot, respectively.
Results: We found that the proliferation and clone formation ability of ovarian cancer HeyA8 cells were markedly reduced by 1.56 mM sinomenine. The transcriptome analysis showed that 2679 genes were differentially expressed after sinomenine treatment in HeyA8 cells, including 1323 down-regulated genes and 1356 up-regulated genes. Gene ontology and KEGG pathway enrichment indicated that differential expression genes (DEGs) between the groups of sinomenine and DMSO-treated HeyA8 cells were mainly involved in the process of the cell cycle, such as kinetochore organization, chromosome segregation, and DNA replication. Strikingly, the top 18 ranked degree genes in the protein–protein interaction (PPI) network were mainly involved in the process of mitosis, such as sister chromatid segregation, condensed chromosome, and microtubule cytoskeleton organization. Moreover, real-time PCR results showed consistent expression trends of DEGs with transcriptome analysis. The results of Western blot showed the expression level of CDK1, which was the highest degree gene in PPI and the main regulator controlling the process of mitosis, and the levels of phosphorylated P-CDK (Thr161) and P-Histone H3 (Ser10) were decreased after being treated with sinomenine.
Conclusion: Our results demonstrated that sinomenine inhibited the proliferation of HeyA8 cells through suppressing mitosis by down-regulating the expression and the activity of CDK1. The study may provide a preliminary research basis for the application of sinomenine in anti-ovarian cancer.
Keywords: ovarian cancer, sinomenine, high throughput RNA-seq, CDK1, cell proliferation