Cardiac glycosides inhibit proliferation and induce apoptosis of human hematological malignant cells

Cardiac glycosides have been used to treat heart diseases for centuries. Recently, the emerging role of these compounds in cancer treatment is being noticed. Mounting evidences suggest that these steroid-like compounds have both anti-proliferation and pro-apoptosis effects on different human solid tumor cells. Our study mainly focuses on hematological malignant diseases. We took 19 different kind of hematological cells as research object. By calculating the IC50 and apoptosis rate of each cell, we discovered that, ouabain, digitoxin, and digoxin all had growth inhibition and apoptosis induction effect with human hematological malignant cells in a time dependent manner, while found no suppressing effect on cell viability of human bone marrow mononuclear cells from people with no hematological malignant diseases. Even within the malignant cells, distinct cell types showed diversities of drug sensitivity. Cells of lymphocytic series and plasmacyte series such as ALL, MM and Burkitt’s lymphoma got higher susceptibility compared to myelocytic cells. The efficacy and safety that cardiac glycosides possessed make them new type of potential targeted anti-tumor agents.