Cytotoxic Effect of Icaritin and Its Mechanisms in Inducing Apoptosis in Human Burkitt Lymphoma Cell Line

Icaritin (ICT), a hydrolytic product of icariin from Epimedium genus, exhibits antitumor activities in several human solid-tumor and myeloid leukemia cells with extensive influence on various cell signal molecules, such as MAPKs being involved in cell proliferation and Bcl-2 participating in cell apoptosis. However, the effect of icaritin on Burkitt Lymphoma has not been elucidated. In the present study, we first screened the potential effect of icaritin on Burkitt lymphoma Raji and P3HR-1 cell lines and found that icaritin showed cytotoxicity in both cell lines. We further found that icaritin could significantly inhibit Raji cells proliferation with S-phase arrest of cell cycle and induced cell apoptosis accompanied by activation of caspase-8 and caspase-9 and cleavage of PARP. We also observed that icaritin was able to decrease Bcl-2 levels, thus shifting the Bcl-2/Bax ratio, and it could obviously reduce c-Myc, a specific molecular target in Burkitt lymphoma. Our findings demonstrated that icaritin showed cytotoxicity, inhibited cell growth, caused S arrest, and induced apoptosis in Burkitt lymphoma cells and provided a rationale for the further evaluation of icaritin for Burkitt lymphoma therapy.