Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the most common causes of
cancer-related death worldwide. Due to the difficulties of early diagnosis, curative treatments are not available for most patients.
Palliative treatments such as
chemotherapy are often associated with low response rate, strong adverse effects and limited clinical benefits for patients. The alternative approaches such as
fermented wheat germ extract (FWGE) with anti-
tumor efficacy may provide improvements in the clinical outcome of current
therapy for HCC. This study aimed to clarify antitumor efficacy of FWGE and the
combination drug effect of FWGE with chemotherapeutic agents,
cisplatin and
5-fluorouracil (5-Fu) in human HCC cells, HepG2, Hep3B, and HepJ5. The present study indicated that FWGE exhibited potential to suppress HepG2, Hep3B, and HepJ5 cells, with the half maximal inhibitory concentrations (IC50) of FWGE were 0.494, 0.371 and 1.524 mg/mL, respectively. FWGE also induced
Poly (Adenosine diphosphate ribose)
polymerase (PARP) associated cell death in Hep3B cells. Moreover, the FWGE treatment further enhanced the cytotoxicity of
cisplatin in all tested HCC cells, and cytotoxicity of
5-Fu in a synergistic manner in HepJ5 cells. Collectively, the results identified the anti-
tumor efficacy of FWGE in HCC cells and suggested that FWGE can be used as a supplement to effectively improve the
tumor suppression efficiency of
cisplatin and
5-Fu in HCC cells.