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©The Author(s) 2015. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Dec 21, 2015; 21(47): 13277-13287
Published online Dec 21, 2015. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v21.i47.13277
Published online Dec 21, 2015. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v21.i47.13277
Guggulsterone induces apoptosis of human hepatocellular carcinoma cells through intrinsic mitochondrial pathway
Juan-Juan Shi, Xiao-Li Jia, Mei Li, Ning Yang, Ya-Ping Li, Xin Zhang, Ning Gao, Shuang-Suo Dang, Department of Infectious Diseases, the Second Affiliated Hospital of Medical School of Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an 710004, Shaanxi Province, China
Author contributions: Shi JJ, Jia XL and Dang SS designed the research; Shi JJ, Li M, Yang N, Li YP, Zhang X and Gao N performed the research; Shi JJ, Yang N and Li YP analyzed the data; and Shi JJ wrote the paper.
Supported by Science and Technology Foundation of Shaanxi Province, China, No. 2007K16-07(9).
Institutional review board statement: No human or animal subjects in the study.
Institutional animal care and use committee statement: Animals were not used in the study.
Conflict-of-interest statement: To the best of our knowledge, no conflict of interest exists.
Data sharing statement: No additional data are available.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Xiao-Li Jia, PhD, Department of Infectious Diseases, the Second Affiliated Hospital of Medical School of Xi’an Jiaotong University, No. 157 Xi’wu Road, Xi’an 710004, Shaanxi Province, China. drjxl@163.com
Telephone: +86-29-87679688 Fax: +86-29-87679688
Received: April 29, 2015
Peer-review started: May 8, 2015
First decision: July 19, 2015
Revised: August 24, 2015
Accepted: October 17, 2015
Article in press: October 20, 2015
Published online: December 21, 2015
Peer-review started: May 8, 2015
First decision: July 19, 2015
Revised: August 24, 2015
Accepted: October 17, 2015
Article in press: October 20, 2015
Published online: December 21, 2015
Core Tip
Core tip: Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the fifth most prevalent cancer and the second leading cause of tumor mortality worldwide. Guggulsterone (GS) is a phytosterol extracted from the gum resin of guggul plants, and its pro-apoptotic effect has been found to play a pivotal role in its anti-carcinogenic mechanisms. In this study, we investigated the anticancer effects of GS-induced apoptosis in human HCC cells and the underlying molecular mechanisms. Our results demonstrated that GS induced HepG2 cell apoptosis through regulating Bcl-2 and Bax expression levels.