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. 2019 Nov;11(11):4464-4473.
doi: 10.21037/jtd.2019.11.18.

Antiangiogenic effect of crocin on breast cancer cell MDA-MB-231

Shuang-Shuang Chen  1   2 , Yuan Gu  3 , Fang Lu  4 , Dan-Ping Qian  5 , Ting-Ting Dong  5 , Zhong-Hai Ding  1 , Shuang Zhao  1 , Zheng-Hong Yu  1
Affiliations

Antiangiogenic effect of crocin on breast cancer cell MDA-MB-231

Shuang-Shuang Chen et al. J Thorac Dis. 2019 Nov.

Abstract

Background: Crocin is the major chemical constituent of the Chinese herb saffron. A number of studies have indicated that crocin induces an antitumor effect by inhibiting proliferation and inducing the apoptosis of tumor cells. However, the effect of crocin on tumor angiogenesis remains unknown.

Methods: The effects of prolonged crocin exposure on breast cancer cell MDA-MB-231, human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs) and mice were examined.

Results: Crocin had a profound effect on the morphology and proliferation rate of MDA-MB-231 and HUVECs. Furthermore, crocin induced apoptosis and cell cycle arrest at the G2/M phase in MDA-MB-231 cells in a dose-dependent manner. This confirms that crocin induces the inhibition of HUVECs. Furthermore, the expression of CD34 in tumor tissues decreased after crocin treatment.

Conclusions: Crocin has an anti-angiogenesis effect that may be correlated to the decreased expression of CD34. Crocin is likely to be involved in the regulation of molecules in the angiogenesis pathway.

Keywords: Breast cancer cell MDA-MB-231; CD34; angiogenesis; anti-angiogenesis; crocin; human umbilical vein endothelial cell (HUVEC); proliferation.

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflicts of Interest: The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Effect of crocin on the morphology and proliferation of cultured MDA-MB-231 and HUVECs. The morphology of MDA-MB-231 (A) and HUVECs (B) significantly changed as the concentration increased. Crocin inhibited the proliferation of MDA-MB-231 (C) and HUVECs (D) in a dose-dependent manner. HUVECs, human umbilical vein endothelial cells.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Effects of Crocin on the apoptosis and cell cycle of MDA-MB-231 cells. (A) The apoptosis of MDA-MB-231 increased with the increase in concentration; (B) at the same time, more and more cells were arrested at G2/M.
Figure 3
Figure 3
The way the crocin inhibits angiogenesis is as follows. (A) Effect of crocin on the migration ability of HUVECs. As shown in the figure, with the increase in drug concentration, the migration ability of umbilical vein blood cells weakened, and the number of cells was gradually reduced (note: compared with the control group, *P<0.05). (B) Effect of crocin on the tubule formation of endothelial cells. From a to d, the drug concentration gradually increased, and the tubular cells that formed gradually decreased. HUVECs, human umbilical vein endothelial cells (bar scale: 50 µm).
Figure 4
Figure 4
Inhibition curves of tumor growth and the visual map of tumor specimens after treatment. (A) After administration, the tumor volume of mice was significantly slowed down in the treatment group; (B) the tumor volume of the second row (treatment group) was significantly smaller than that of the first row (control group).
Figure 5
Figure 5
Immunohistochemical results (EnVision). (A) The expression of CD34; (B) the expression of Ki-67. The number one was the control group, while the number two was the treatment group. The expression of CD34 and Ki-67 were higher in the control group than in the treatment group.
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