Resveratrol, an edible polyphenolic
stilbene, has been reported to possess substantial antileukemic activities in different
leukemia cell lines. We investigated whether
resveratrol is active against fresh
acute myeloid leukemia (AML) cells and its mechanism of action. Because
interleukin 1beta(IL-1beta) plays a key role in proliferation of AML cells, we first tested the effect of
resveratrol on the AML cell lines OCIM2 and OCI/AML3, both of which produce IL-1beta and proliferate in response to it.
Resveratrol inhibited proliferation of both cell lines in a dose-dependent fashion (5-75 microM) by arresting the cells at S phase, thus preventing their progression through the cell cycle; IL-1beta partially reversed this inhibitory effect.
Resveratrol significantly reduced production of IL-1beta in OCIM2 cells. It also suppressed the IL-1beta-induced activation of
transcription factor nuclear factor kappaB (
NF-kappaB), which modulates an array of signals controlling cellular survival, proliferation, and
cytokine production. Indeed, incubation of OCIM2 cells with
resveratrol resulted in apoptotic cell death. Because
caspase inhibitors Ac-DEVD-CHO or
z-DEVD-FMK partially reversed the antiproliferative effect of
resveratrol, we tested its effect on the
caspase pathway and found that
resveratrol induced the activation of the
cysteine protease caspase 3 and subsequent cleavage of the
DNA repair enzyme poly (
adenosine diphosphate [
ADP]-ribose) polymerase. Finally,
resveratrol suppressed colony-forming cell proliferation of fresh AML marrow cells from 5 patients with newly diagnosed AML in a dose-dependent fashion. Taken together, our data showing that
resveratrol is an effective in vitro inhibitor of AML cells suggest that this compound may have a role in future
therapies for AML.