Antitumor Activity of Di-n-Butyl-(2,6-Difluorobenzohydroxamato)Tin(IV) against Human Gastric Carcinoma SGC-7901 Cells via G2/M Cell Cycle Arrest and Cell Apoptosis

Di-n-butyl-(2,6-difluorobenzohydroxamato)Tin(IV) (DBDFT), a potential antitumor agent against malignancies, exhibited high activities both in vitro and in vivo. Flow cytometric analysis showed that treatment with DBDFT against Human Gastric Carcinoma (SGC-7901) cells induced a concentration and time-dependent cell accumulation in the G2/M phase of the cell cycle with a parallel depletion of the percentage of cells in G0/G1, the cell apoptosis was observed by characteristic morphological changes and AnnexinV/PI dual-immunofluorescence staining. Fluorescence quantitative FQ- PCR and western blot results showed that G2/M-phase arrest was correlated with up-regulation of cyclin dependent kinase inhibitor p21, Chk2 and CyclinB1, whereas the expressions of other G2/M regulatory check-point protein, Cdc2, and feedback loop protein Cdc25C were obviously down-regulated in a p53-independent manner after the SGC-7901 cells were treated with DBDFT (2.5, 5.0, 7.5 µmol·L(−1)) compared with the control. Furthermore, the up-regulation of Bax and down-regulation of Bcl-2 as well as the activation of caspase-3 were observed, which indicated that DBDFT treatment triggered the mitochondrial apoptotic pathway with an increase of Bax/Bcl-2 ratios, resulting in mitochondrial membrane potential loss and caspase-9 activation in DBDFT treated SGC-7901 cells. In summary, the results illustrated the involvement of multiple signaling pathways targeted by DBDFT in mediating G2/M cell cycle arrest and apoptosis in SGC-7901 cells, which suggested that DBDFT might have therapeutic potential against gastric carcinoma as an effective compound.