Estudo do potencial antimetastático da biflorina

Abstract

Metastasis remains the leading cause of death from cancer. Due to the absence of pharmacological therapy for the treatment of secondary tumors, the search for new drugs with antimetastatic potential is important to the development of new anticancer drugs. In this context we decided to evaluate the antimetastatic potential of biflorin, an o-naphthoquinone isolated from roots of Capraria biflora. In cell proliferation assay using Alamar blue, we found that this quinone has cytotoxic activity against human melanoma cells line (MDAMB-435) at 5 µM concentration during 24 hours of exposure. However, with this same dose, there was no cytotoxic effect within 12 hours of exposure. Trypan blue and crystal violet assay showed that biflorina has no cytotoxic effect at 1.0, 2.5 and 5.0 µM during 12 hours of exposure. Migration assay and cell invasion assay were performed using concentrations of 1.0, 2.5 and 5.0 µM (12h exposure). In these trials we found that biflorin decreases cell motility and invasiveness. In morphological analysis of cells stained using May-Grunwald-Giemsa and actin stain by phalloidin, we observed that biflorin alters the organization of the actin cytoskeleton, with the presence of smaller, retracted and larger cells. In Western blot assay we observed a decrease in the expression of the adhesion molecule N-cadherin and inhibition of PI3K/AKT signaling pathway. These results give biflorin as an agent with promising antimetastatic potential.