The synergistic anticancer effect of cisplatin combined with Oldenlandia diffusa in osteosarcoma MG-63 cell line in vitro

BACKGROUND: Oldenlandia diffusa (OD) is a well-known traditional Chinese medicine, which is used to prevent and treat many disorders, especially cancers. However, its role in osteosarcoma has not been well understood. Here, we used OD and cisplatin individually and combined in osteosarcoma MG-63 cell to explore whether OD could induce cellular apoptosis and suppress the ability of proliferation and invasion of osteosarcoma MG-63 cell. METHODS: The changes of cellular shape were analyzed by optical microscopy. 3-(4,5-Dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazoliumbromide assay was used to analyze cell survival rate in vitro. Flow cytometry was performed to detect cell cycle and cell death. Scratch migration assay was used to evaluate cell migration and invasion. Western blot was performed to determine the expression levels of pro-apoptotic and anti-apoptotic protein. RESULTS: In this study, we found that the survival rate reduced significantly in the combined group compared with the individual group and control group. The apoptosis-inducing effect of combined application was much more significant than that of individual application. The invasion ability of combined application was significantly lower than that of the individual application. In the combined group, there were high expression levels of pro-apoptotic protein and low expression of anti-apoptotic protein. Cell-cycle analysis showed a change in the cell-cycle distribution and arrested cells in G2-M phase. CONCLUSION: In this study, we found that OD inhibited proliferation and induced apoptosis in the human osteosarcoma MG-63 cell line in a time-dependent and dose-dependent manner. In addition, OD displayed inhibitory activity on MG-63 cell proliferation and invasion and the study also showed that OD activity might be mediated by caspase activation. These data suggest that OD might represent a novel, efficient candidate agent for further experimentation in osteosarcoma treatment.