The Chinese herb Prunella vulgaris promotes apoptosis in human well-differentiated thyroid carcinoma cells via the B-cell lymphoma-2/Bcl-2-associated X protein/caspase-3 signaling pathway

Prunella vulgaris (PV), a traditional Chinese herb, has been shown to be rich in bioactive chemicals and possess anti-proliferative and pro-apoptotic effects on tumor cells. The effect of PV on human well-differentiated thyroid carcinoma (WDTC), which accounts for the majority of common endocrine malignancies, remains to be elucidated. The present study aimed to investigate the function of PV on WDTC cell lines and apoptosis-associated signaling pathway activity. Additional studies demonstrated that PV may induce apoptosis in WDTC TPC-1 and FTC-133 cell lines, using the Cell Counting Kit-8 assay. Morphological changes of apoptotic cells were observed by Hoechst 33342 and acridine orange/ethidium bromide staining. In addition, ladder pattern of fragmented DNA was observed by DNA gel electrophoresis. It was also observed that PV significantly increased Bcl-2-associated X protein and caspase-3 expression, and downregulated B-cell lymphoma-2 expression in TPC-1 and FTC-133 by reverse transcription-quantitative polymerase chain reaction (P<0.05). Thus, the present results indicated that PV has the potential to be a future WDTC therapeutic agent.