• Yulin Zhang, Jiaolin Bao, Kai Wang, Xuejing Jia, Chao Zhang, Borong Huang, Meiwan Chen, Jian-Bo Wan, Huanxing Su, Yitao Wang, and Chengwei He.
• 1 State Key Laboratory of Quality Research in Chinese Medicine, Institute of Chinese Medical Sciences, University of Macau, Macau 999078, China.
• Am. J. Chin. Med. 2015 Jan 1; 43 (8): 1657-70.

AbstractPulsatilla saponin D (SB365), a saponin isolated from rhizoma of Pulsatilla chinensis (Bunge) Regel, exhibited anticancer activities in various cancer types. In the present study, we identified that SB365 was a potent inhibitor of autophagic flux in several cancer cell lines. SB365 induced a robust accumulation of autophagosomes as evidenced by monodansylaervarine (MDC) staining and increased protein levels of LC3-II. However, SB365 caused the accumulation of p62, a substrate that should be degraded through the autophagy-lysosomal pathway. These results indicated that SB365 was an inducer of autophagosome formation, but an inhibitor of autophagic flux. Interestingly, we found that SB365 synergistically enhanced the anticancer activity of chemotherapeutic agents against cervical cancer HeLa cells. Furthermore, our study demonstrated that SB365 increased the phosphorylation of ERK and inhibited the phosphorylation of mTOR and p70S6K, suggesting that their roles in the effects of SB365 on autophagy. These results suggest that SB365 could be a promising adjuvant anticancer agent.

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