Naringenin decreases invasiveness and metastasis by inhibiting TGF-β-induced epithelial to mesenchymal transition in pancreatic cancer cells.

• Main Authors: Changjie Lou, Fayun Zhang, Ming Yang, Juan Zhao, Wenfeng Zeng, Xiaocui Fang, Yanqiao Zhang, Chunling Zhang, Wei Liang
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Public Library of Science (PLoS) 2012-01-01
• Series: PLoS ONE
• Online Access: http://europepmc.org/articles/PMC3530567?pdf=render
• ISSN: 1932-6203

Epithelial to mesenchymal transition (EMT) promotes cellular motility, invasiveness and metastasis during embryonic development and tumorigenesis. Transforming growth factor-β (TGF-β) signaling pathway is a key regulator of EMT. A lot of evidences suggest that this process is Smad3-dependent. Herein we showed that exposure of aspc-1 and panc-1 pancreatic cancer cells to TGF-β1 resulted in characteristic morphological alterations of EMT, and enhancement of cell motility and gemcitabine (Gem) resistance along with an up-regulation of EMT markers genes such as vimentin, N-cadherin, MMP2 and MMP9. Naringenin (Nar) down-regulated EMT markers expression in both mRNA and protein levels by inhibiting TGF-β1/Smad3 signal pathway in the pancreatic cancer cells. Consequently, Nar suppressed the cells migration and invasion and reversed their resistance to Gem.