6-shogaol effectively induces cell apoptosis in transformed and primary human leukemia cells, as well as in leukemia xenografts. - GreenMedInfo Summary
6-Shogaol induces apoptosis in human leukemia cells through a process involving caspase-mediated cleavage of eIF2α.
Mol Cancer. 2013 ;12(1):135. Epub 2013 Nov 12. PMID: 24215632
Qun Liu
BACKGROUND: 6-Shogaol is a promising antitumor agent isolated from dietary ginger (Zingiber officinale). However, little is known about the efficacy of 6-shogaol on leukemia cells. Here we investigated the underlying mechanism of 6-shogaol induced apoptosis in human leukemia cells in vitro and in vivo.
METHODS: Three leukemia cell lines and primary leukemia cells were used to investigate the apoptosis effect of 6-shogaol. A shotgun approach based on label-free proteome with LC-CHIP Q-TOF MS/MS was employed to identify the cellular targets of 6-shogaol and the differentially expressed proteins were analyzed by bioinformatics protocols.
RESULTS: The present study indicated that 6-shogaol selectively induced apoptosis in transformed and primary leukemia cells but not in normal cells. Eukaryotic translation initiation factor 2 alpha (eIF2α), a key regulator in apoptosis signaling pathway, was significantly affected in both Jurkat and U937 proteome profiles. The docking results suggested that 6-shogaol might bind well to eIF2α at Ser51 of the N-terminal domain. Immunoblotting data indicated that 6-shogaol induced apoptosis througha process involving dephosphorylation of eIF2α and caspase activation-dependent cleavage of eIF2α. Furthermore, 6-shogaol markedly inhibited tumor growth and induced apoptosis in U937 xenograft mouse model.
CONCLUSION: The potent anti-leukemia activity of 6-shogaol found both in vitro and in vivo in our study make this compound a potential anti-tumor agent for hematologic malignancies.