Ellagic Acid Exerts Anti-proliferation Effects on MCF-7 Breast Cancer Cells

Ellagic acid is a naturally occurring polyphenolic compound present in pomegranate plants, strawberries, grapes, apples, tendril blueberries, blackberries and walnuts. Ellagic acid exhibits a variety of effects such as anti-bacterial, anti-inflammatory, immune regulatory and anti-tumor effects (Chen et al., 2011). In particular, ellagic acid has an inhibitory effect on many tumors, and is currently one of the most promising natural drugs for cancer therapy. However, the molecular mechanisms by which ellagic acid exhibits anti-tumor effects are not completely understood. Uncontrolled cell proliferation and the resistance to apoptosis are important features of cancer (Hanahan D, Weinberg RA. Hallmarks of cancer: the next generation. Cell. 2011;144:646-74). Thus we speculated that ellagic acid may suppress the proliferation of cancer cells and induce apoptosis in cancer cells. In this study we used MCF-7 breast cancer cells as the experimental model and examined the effects of ellagic acid these cells. Based on our preliminary microarray data that ellagic acid regulated TGF-β signaling pathway, we constructed smad3 overexpression plasmids and explored whether ellagic acid inhibited the proliferation of MCF-7 breast cancer cells via the regulation of the TGF-β/Smad3 pathway, which