juglone exerts antitumor effect in ovarian cancer cells

objective(s): juglone is isolated from many species of the juglandaceae family and used as an anti-viral, anti-bacterial, and anti-tumor therapeutic. here, we evaluated juglone-induced antitumor effect in ovarian cancer skov3 cells. materials and methods: mtt assay was performed to examine juglone anti-proliferative effect. cell cycle and apoptosis were studied using flow cytometry in juglone-treated skov3 cells. to investigate molecular mechanism of cell cycle and apoptosis, protein expression levels were measured by western blot analysis of cyclin d1, bcl-2, bax, cytochrome c, caspase-9 and caspase-3. to investigate the motility of juglone-treated skov3 cell, matrigel invasion assay was employed to characterize cell invasion. also, matrix metalloproteinase-2 (mmp-2) expression levels were detected by western blot. results:juglone significantly inhibited skov3 cell proliferation as shown by g0/g1 phase arrest, and this effect was mediated by inactivation of cyclin d1 protein (p<0.05). juglone induced apoptosis in skov3 cell which was accompanied by caspase-9 and caspase-3 activation (p<0.05). juglone decreased bcl-2 levels and increased bax and cytochrome c (cyt c) levels(p<0.05). juglone sufficiently inhibited invasion while evidently decreased mmp-2 expression (p<0.05). conclusion:the results suggest that juglone could probably induce apoptosis through mitochondrial pathway and restrained cell invasiveness by decreasing mmp expression.