Antitumor effect of manumycin on colorectal cancer cells by increasing the reactive oxygen species production and blocking PI3K-AKT pathway

Manumycin is a natural, well-tolerated microbial metabolite and is regarded as a farnesyltransferase inhibitor. Some data suggest that manumycin inhibits proliferation of diverse cancer cells through various pathways. However, the antitumor effect of manumycin on colorectal cancer (CRC) remains unknown. In the present study, we investigated the antitumor effect of manumycin on CRC in vitro and in vivo. The results of cell viability assay revealed that the proliferation of the CRC cells was significantly inhibited by manumycin. Moreover, cell apoptosis induced by manumycin was also found in a time- and dose-dependent manner. Interestingly, treatment of the CRC cells with manumycin resulted in increased generation of reactive oxygen species. Subsequently, manumycin also decreased the phosphorylation of phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3K) and AKT, as well as the expression of caspase-9 and poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP) in a time-dependent manner. In addition, we found that N-acetyl-l-cysteine (NAC) attenuated the effect of manumycin on the PI3K-AKT pathway, and wortmannin reduced the effect of manumycin on caspase-9 and PARP expression. More importantly, the anticancer effect of manumycin was also observed in established tumor xenografts. Taken together, these findings supported the potential application of manumycin against colorectal carcinoma.