Effect of Sesamin on Apoptosis and Cell Cycle Arrest in Human Breast Cancer MCF-7 Cells

Abstract

Dietary prevention has been known to reduce breast cancer risk. Sesamin is one of the major components insesame seeds and has been widely studied and proven to have anti-proliferation and anti-angiogenic effects oncancer cells. In this study, the influence of sesamin was tested in the human breast cancer MCF-7 cell line forcell viability (MTT assay) and cell cycling (flow cytometry). Results showed that sesamin dose-dependently (1,10 and 50 μM) reduced the cell viability and increased LDH release and apoptosis (TUNEL assay). In addition,there was a significant increase of sub-G1 phase arrest in the cell cycle after sesamin treatment. Furthermore,sesamin increased the expression of apoptotic markers of Bax, caspase-3, and cell cycle control proteins, p53 andcheckpoint kinase 2. Taken together, these results suggested that sesamin might be used as a dietary supplementf or prevention of breast cancer by modulating apoptotic signal pathways and inhibiting tumor cell growth.