Pinolenic acid (PNA), a naturally-occurring
polyunsaturated fatty acid (PUFA), is found mainly in pine seeds. Although many studies have demonstrated beneficial effects of pine seed oil, there are no reports of the
biological effects of PNA on
cancer metastasis. The objective of this study was to investigate the effect of PNA on human
breast cancer MDA-MB-231 cell proliferation and
metastasis in vitro. We found that PNA did not affect cell viability and cell-matrix adhesion, but it inhibited cell
metastasis by suppressing cell invasiveness and motility. Suppression could in part be associated with the modification of the n-6 PUFA composition of cells by PNA which significantly decreased the percentage of
arachidonic acid (AA) in
phospholipids from 12.6% to 4.9%. The lower AA content of the
cancer cells might result in less synthesis of
prostaglandin E2 (
PGE2), and subsequent down-regulation of inducible
cyclooxygenase (COX-2) expression. Thus, PNA represents a potential anti-
cancer agent.