This study investigated the enhanced antiproliferative effect of Lactobacillus casei strain Shirota (LcS) on
geniposide actions in human oral
squamous carcinoma HSC-3 cells. An MTT assay, flow cytometry, qPCR assay, western blot and HPLC were used for this study. The concentration of 1.0 × 10⁶ CFU/mL of LcS had no effect on the HOK normal oral epithelial cells and HSC-3
cancer cells. The 25 and 50 µg/mL
geniposide concentrations also had no impact on HOK normal oral epithelial cells, but they had remarkable inhibitory effects on the growth of HSC-3
cancer cells, which are enhanced in the presence of LcS. By the flow cytometry assay, the LcS-
geniposide-H (1.0 × 10⁶ CFU/mL LcS and 50 µg/mL
geniposide)-treated HSC-3
cancer cells had the largest number of cells undergoing apoptosis compared to cells treated with other combinationsand obviously more than cells treated with only
geniposide-H (50 µg/mL
geniposide).
Geniposide-H could increase the
mRNA and
protein expressions of
caspase-3,
caspase-8,
caspase-9, Bax, p53, p21, IκB-α, Fas, FasL,
TIMP-1, and
TIMP-2 as well as decrease those of Bcl-2, Bcl-xL, HIAP-1, HIAP-2, NF-κB, COX-2, iNOS, MMP-2, and MMP-9 compared to other groups of cells, and LcS further enhanced these changes, with results that are greater than for the cells treated with only a high concentration of
geniposide. The results of this study show thatLcS enhanced the antiproliferative effect of
geniposide in HSC-3
cancer cells.