| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立臺灣大學 === 生物化學暨分子生物學研究所 === 91 === Saponins, which are present in plants, have been suggested as possible anticarcinogens. As we know, soybeans are one of the most important source of dietary saponins and ginseng saponins have been demonstrated that also can induce apoptosis in many tumor cell lines. Apoptosis play a critical role in both the normal development and the pathology of a wide variety of tissues and can be characterized by cytoplasmic shrinkage, nuclear condensation, and DNA fragmentation. Initiation of apoptosis is controlled by regulation the balance between the death and life signals perceived by cell. In recent years, the regulation of cell cycle and apoptosis has received much attention as possible means of eliminating excessively proliferating cells.
Quillaja bark saponins, one kind of triterpenoids, have a common steroid-like structure and possess surface-active characteristics that are due to their chemical structure. In this preliminary study, we use MTT assay to evaluate the cell viability of several different kinds of tumor cells and find that Quillaja bark saponins can inhibit tumor cells proliferation especially prostate cancer cell line, PC-3, and also induce PC-3 cells death through apoptosis, which is examined by sub-G1, nuclear condensation, and DNA ladder.
Excessively oxidative stress may trigger cell death through mitochondrial dependent apoptosis .By means of flow cytometry, we find that Quillaja bark saponins don’t cause oxidative stress in PC-3 cell. As the result, Quillaja bark saponins inducing PC-3 cells death may go through the mitochondrial-independently apoptotic pathway.
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