Author(s)

Chin-Cheng Su^1,2,3,4*

¹Tumor Research Center of Integrative Medicine, Changhua Christian Hospital, Changhua, China.
²Department of Surgery, Changhua Christian Hospital, Changhua, China.
³Comprehensive Breast Cancer Center, Changhua Christian Hospital, Changhua, China.
⁴School of Chinese Medicine, College of Chinese Medicine, China Medical University, Taichung, China.

Tanshinone IIA (Tan-IIA) is extracted from Dan-Shen. Tan-IIA could inhibit human pancreatic cancer BxPC-3 cells through decreasing TCTP, Mcl-1 and Bcl-xl expression in vitro. Our previous study showed that Tan-IIA can inhibit hepatocellular carcinoma hep-J5 cells and human breast cancer BT-20 cells through inducing endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress. In the present study, we investigated the ER stress related protein expressions in human pancreatic cancer BxPC3 cells were treated with Tan-IIA. The ER stress related protein expressions in human pancreatic cancer BxPC-3 cells were evaluated by western blotting. The results showed that Tan-IIA can increase the protein expressions of PERK, ATF6, Caspase-12 and CHOP, but decrease Bip, PDI, Calnexin, Calreticulin and Bcl-2 expression. These findings indicated that Tan-IIA can inhibit human pancreatic cancer BxPC-3 cells by inducing ER stress to induce apoptosis.

Tanshinone IIA, Pancreatic Cancer BxPC-3 Cells, ER Stress, Apoptosis

Su, C. (2015) Tanshinone IIA Could Inhibit Pancreatic Cancer BxPC-3 Cells through Increasing PERK, ATF6, Caspase-12 and CHOP Expression to Induce Apoptosis. Journal of Biomedical Science and Engineering, 8, 149-159. doi: 10.4236/jbise.2015.83015.