Anti-Metastatic Potential of a Novel Xanthone Sourced by Swertia chirata Against In Vivo and In Vitro Breast Adenocarcinoma Frameworks

Background: The Anticancer property of Swertia chirata has been well established. It forms a rich source of compounds to which its anticancer property can be attributed, among the compounds found in S. chirata xanthones form an important group. Among the most abundant xanthones found in S. chirata, 1,5,8-trihydroxy-3-methoxy xanthone (TMX) was found to be most effective. As metastasis is the underlying cause of most cancer-related deaths, in this study, we evaluated the anti-metastatic potential of TMX against adenocarcinoma both in vivo and in vitro.

Materials and methods: In vivo anti-metastatic potential was proved by histological evidence of different organs, giemsa staining of bone marrow, subcutaneous re-injection of the aberrant bone marrow cells into the right flank of the mice to observe the formation of tumors and analyzing the markers related to metastasis by immunohistochemistry (IHC) and western blot. In vitro validation of anti-metastatic potential was carried out against human breast adenocarcinoma cell line MCF-7 by primarily analyzing the migratory property of cells through scratch wound healing assay and the ability of cells to form colonies. The re-validation part was performed by western blot of markers related to metastasis and real-time analysis of EMT related markers.

Results: In vivo, TMX treatment restricted metastasis of EAC induced solid tumor to liver, lung, bone marrow, and validation of this finding was achieved by down regulation of metastatic and EMT markers. In vitro, TMX treatment restricted migratory and colony forming ability of MCF-7 cells by down regulating metastatic and EMT markers.

Conclusion: It was proved from our study that TMX treatment successfully reduced the metastatic potential of EAC induced solid tumor, with in vitro validation TMX on the MCF-7 cell line.

Keywords: Chirata; Metastasis; xanthone.