Ropivacaine promotes apoptosis of hepatocellular carcinoma cells through damaging mitochondria and activating caspase-3 activity

• Published in: Biological research Vol. 52; no. 1; pp. 36 - 10
• Main Authors: Wang, Wenting, Zhu, Mingyue, Xu, Zhixin, Li, Wei, Dong, Xu, Chen, Yi, Lin, Bo, Li, Mengsen
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England BioMed Central Ltd 12.07.2019; BioMed Central; Sociedad de Biología de Chile; BMC
• Subjects: Apoptosis; BIOLOGY; Cancer; Cancer cells; Cancer research; Carcinoma; Caspase-3 activity; Caspases; Cellular signal transduction; Computer simulation; Cytochrome c; Drug therapy; Electron microscopy; Enzymes; Health aspects; Hepatocellular carcinoma; Hepatocellular carcinoma cells; Local anaesthetic agent; Local anesthetics; Microscopy; Mitochondria; Novels; Proteins; Signal transduction; China; Signal transduction; Hepatocellular carcinoma cells; Caspase-3 activity; Apoptosis; Local anaesthetic agent
• ISSN: 0717-6287; 0716-9760; 0717-6287
• DOI: 10.1186/s40659-019-0242-7

Recent evidences indicated that some local anaesthetic agents played a role in inhibiting the proliferation of cancer cells; Whether ropivacaine is able to promote apoptosis of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) cells is still unclear. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of ropivacaine on the apoptosis of HCC cells. In the present study, we treated the HCC cell lines, Bel7402 and HLE with ropivacaine. MTT, DAPI stain, trypan blue exclusion dye assay, flow cytometry, electron microscopy, computational simulation, laser confocal microscope, Western blotting, and enzyme activity analysis of caspase-3 were applied to detect the growth and apoptosis of HCC cells and to explore the role mechanism of ropivacaine. Ropivacaine was able to inhibit proliferation and promote apoptosis of HCC cells in a dose- and time-dependent manner. Ropivacaine also has a trait to inhibit the migration of HCC cells; ropivacaine damaged the mitochondria of HCC cells. The results also indicated that ropivacaine was able to interact with caspase-3, promote cytoplasmic caspase-3 migration into the nucleus, stimulate cleavage of caspase-3 and PARP-1, caspase-9 proteins, inhibit the expression of Bcl-2, promote expression of Apaf-1 and mitochondria release cytochrome C, and activate the activity of caspase-3. Ropivacaine has a novel role in promoting apoptosis of HCC cells; The role mechanism of ropivacaine maybe involve in damaging the function of mitochondria and activating the caspase-3 signalling pathway in HCC cells. Our findings provide novel insights into the local anaesthetic agents in the therapy of HCC patients.