Molecules 2016, 21(7), 954; https://doi.org/10.3390/molecules21070954
Antiproliferative Activity and Cellular Uptake of Evodiamine and Rutaecarpine Based on 3D Tumor Models
Hui Guo 1,2,3, Dongmei Liu 1,2,3, Bin Gao 2,3, Xiaohui Zhang 2,3, Minli You 2,3, Hui Ren 2,3, Hongbo Zhang 4,5, Hélder A. Santos 4
and Feng Xu 2,3,6,*
and Feng Xu 2,3,6,*
1
Department of Pharmacy, Shaanxi University of Chinese Medicine, Xianyang 712046, China
2
The Key Laboratory of Biomedical Information Engineering of Ministry of Education, School of Life Science and Technology, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an 710049, China
3
Bioinspired Engineering and Biomechanics Center (BEBC), Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an 710049, China
4
Division of Pharmaceutical Chemistry and Technology, Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Helsinki, Helsinki FI-00014, Finland
5
School of Engineering and Applied Physics, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
6
Key Laboratory of Shaanxi Province for Craniofacial Precision Medicine Research, College of Stomatology, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an 710049, China
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Academic Editors: Shufeng Zhou and Wei-Zhu Zhong
Received: 19 May 2016 / Revised: 11 July 2016 / Accepted: 15 July 2016 / Published: 21 July 2016
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Drug Design and Discovery: Principles and Applications)
Abstract
Evodiamine (EVO) and rutaecarpine (RUT) are promising anti-tumor drug candidates. The evaluation of the anti-proliferative activity and cellular uptake of EVO and RUT in 3D multicellular spheroids of cancer cells would better recapitulate the native situation and thus better reflect an in vivo response to the treatment. Herein, we employed the 3D culture of MCF-7 and SMMC-7721 cells based on hanging drop method and evaluated the anti-proliferative activity and cellular uptake of EVO and RUT in 3D multicellular spheroids, and compared the results with those obtained from 2D monolayers. The drugs’ IC50 values were significantly increased from the range of 6.4–44.1 μM in 2D monolayers to 21.8–138.0 μM in 3D multicellular spheroids, which may be due to enhanced mass barrier and reduced drug penetration in 3D models. The fluorescence of EVO and RUT was measured via fluorescence spectroscopy and the cellular uptake of both drugs was characterized in 2D tumor models. The results showed that the cellular uptake concentrations of RUT increased with increasing drug concentrations. However, the EVO concentrations uptaken by the cells showed only a small change with increasing drug concentrations, which may be due to the different solubility of EVO and Rut in solvents. Overall, this study provided a new vision of the anti-tumor activity of EVO and RUT via 3D multicellular spheroids and cellular uptake through the fluorescence of compounds. View Full-Text
Graphical abstract
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited (CC BY 4.0).
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Guo, H.; Liu, D.; Gao, B.; Zhang, X.; You, M.; Ren, H.; Zhang, H.; Santos, H.A.; Xu, F. Antiproliferative Activity and Cellular Uptake of Evodiamine and Rutaecarpine Based on 3D Tumor Models. Molecules 2016, 21, 954.
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