Lycorine induces cell-cycle arrest in the G0/G1 phase in K562 cells via HDAC inhibition

Li, Lv; Dai, Hong-Juan; Ye, Mao; Wang, Shu-Ling; Xiao, Xiao-Juan; Zheng, Jie; Chen, Hui-Yong; Luo, Yu-hao; Liu, Jing

Lycorine, a natural alkaloid extracted from Amaryllidaceae, has shown various pharmacological effects, such as anti-inflammatory activities, anti-malarial properties, emetic actions, anti-virus effects, and so on [6, 7] . Recent studies have focused on the potential antitumor activity of lycorine. Lycorine can reportedly inhibit the growth of multiple tumor cells that are naturally resistant to pro-apoptotic stimuli, such as glioblastoma, melanoma, non-small-cell-lung cancers, and metastatic cancers, among others. Furthermore, lycorine provides excellent in vivo antitumor activity against the B16F10 melanoma model [8] . In our previous study, we found that lycorine decreases the survival rate of and induces apoptosis in HL-60 acute myeloid leukemia cells and the multiple myeloma cell line KM3. The mechanisms of the induced apoptosis were mediated by stimulating the caspase pathway and increasing the Bax: Bcl-2 ratio through downregulation of Bcl-2 expression [9, 10] . Lycorine also exhibits significantly higher anti-proliferative activities in tumor cells than in non-tumor cell lines [11] .