In vitro and in vivo Effects of Dang-Gui-Liu-Huang-Tang in Humanbreast Cancer MCF-7 Cells Treated with Tamoxifen

Breast cancer has been the most malignancy worldwide. It is indicated that over 50% of breast cancer patients in Taiwan considered Chinese Herbal Products effective in treating cancer. Many studies indicate an improvement in the quality of life and general health in cancer patients adopting TCM treatment. However, whether there is interaction between Chinese Herbal Products and tamoxifen remains to be clarified. The aim of this study was to investigate the in vitro and in vivo effects of Dang-Gui-Liu-Huang-Tang on human breast cancer MCF-7 cells treated with tamoxifen (Tam). In vitro cultured MCF-7 cells were co-treated with and Tamoxifen. This was followed by MTT assays and cell cycle analysis in order to assess cell proliferation, Western blot analysis was used to analyze the expression of various protein involved in growth-related signal pathways. In addition, immunohistochemistry was used to detect autophagy among the cancer cells. In vivo analysis used female athymic nude mice implanted with MCF-7 cells; these mice were randomly assigned to six groups. These were the vehicle group (300 μl sterile water, oral/day), the estradiol group (5.5 x 10 -7 mole/g, subcutaneously, 3 days), the tamoxifen (Tam) group (4.6 mg/kg, oral/day), the low dose Dang-Gui-Liu-Huang-Tang (0.04gm/kg, oral/day) + Tam group, the middle dose Dang-Gui-Liu-Huang-Tang (0.08 gm/kg, oral/day) + Tam group and the high dose Dang-Gui-Liu-Huang-Tang (0.12 gm/kg, oral/days) + Tam group. The middle dose of Dang-Gui-Liu-Huang-Tang (2.6 gm/kg) + Tamoxifen was the most similar to the situation in humans. The estradiol group was used as a positive control for this study. All mice were sacrificed after 21 days of treatment; body weight, tumor volume and tumor weight were then measured.

Project ID:PC10308-1373
External Project ID:MOST103-2320-B182-003