Proliferation effects of cinnamon extract on human HeLa and HL-60 tumor cell lines

G.-Y. Xie, J.Ma, L. Guan, X.-M. Liu, A. Wang, C.-H. Hu

Department of Oncology, The Second Xiangya Hospital, Central South University, Changsha, Hunan, China. huchunhong@csu.edu.cn

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• Pharmacology

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the possible anti-cancer properties of cinnamon extract on two human tumor cell lines, HeLa cells and HL-60 cells.

MATERIALS AND METHODS: Two human tumor cell lines, HeLa cells and HL-60 cells, were exposed to increased concentrations of an extract prepared from cinnamon. The cell proliferation and cell cycle distribution were evaluated using MTT assay and flow cytometry, respectively. The possible action mechanism was also investigated by Western blot.

RESULTS: The results showed that cinnamon extract strongly inhibited tumor cell proliferation in a dose-dependent manner and exhibited dramatic increases in the percentage of cells in G2/M in parallel with exposure to increasing concentration of cinnamon extract. The Western blot results showed that cinnamon extract reduced the cyclin A, cyclin B1, ERK2, and p-ERK proteins expression.

CONCLUSIONS: Our study suggested that cinnamon extract inhibit the tumor cell survival by both down-regulated their target cell cycle regulation molecules and mitosis regulation molecules.

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