The incurable differentiated
thyroid cancer (DTC), poorly differentiated
thyroid cancer (
PDTC) and
anaplastic thyroid cancer (ATC) are the most aggressive in all of the
thyroid cancers. Unfortunately, there are almost no effective
therapies. A novel and effective treatment is urgently needed to develop. Recently,
reversine, a small synthetic
purine analogue, has been reported to be effective in human
thyroid cancer suppression through cell cycle arrest and apoptosis induction. In this study, we performed an in vitro evaluation of
reversine on autophagy activation, one of the programmed cell death, and the related mechanisms in human
follicular thyroid cancer cell line WRO. Incubation of WRO cells with
reversine induced autophagosome formation in a short time treatment. LC3-II overexpression in a dosage-dependent manner with
reversine treatment was demonstrated in the autophagy activation. Moreover,
reversine suppressed Akt/mTOR related signaling pathway activation, a major pathway for autophagy activation, was also revealed in WRO cells. Our data demonstrated that
reversine is effective to induce autophagy. Moreover, the LC3-II overexpression and the p62
protein were degraded in a time-dependent manner, indicating that the autophagic flux has happened in the
reversine treated WRO cells. In addition, the activation of Akt/mTOR/
p70S6K related pathways were shown to be reduced, suggesting these pathways may involve in the
reversine mediated autophagy induction.
Reversine is therefore worthy of further investigation in clinical
therapeutics.