Matrine, as a member of Sophora family, is an
alkaloid found in plants, and produces plethora pharmacological effects, including anti-
cancer effects. However, the mechanism involved remains largely unknown. This study is conducted to investigate the anti-
cancer mechanisms of
matrine in human
esophageal cancer in vitro and in vivo. In human
esophageal cancer cell Eca-109,
matrine significantly decreased the cell viability in a dose-dependent manner, and induced apoptosis as well as cell cycle arrest in G0/G1 phase by up-regulation of P53 and P21. The expression of several apoptosis-related
proteins in cells and
tumor tissues were evaluated by Western blot analysis. We found that
matrine induced cell apoptosis by down-regulation of the ratio of BCL-2/BID and increasing activation of
caspase-9. Further studies indicated that
matrine induced apoptosis of Eca-109 was through the mitochondria-mediated internal pathway, but not by
death receptor-mediated extrinsic apoptotic pathway, which was confirmed by the fact that Bid translocated from the nucleus to mitochondria during the process of the apoptosis induced by
matrine. In vivo study found that
matrine effectively inhibited the
tumor formation of Eca-109 cells in nude mice. Our study suggests that
matrine could serve as a potential novel agent from natural products to treat
esophageal cancer.