Abstract

Dihydroartemisinin (DHA), a semi-synthetic derivative of artemisinin, which is a well tolerated and effective drug for malaria treatment, has shown potent antitumor ability. This study is explored to evaluate whether DHA can inhibit glioma cell proliferation, invasion, and glioma cell mediated angiogenesis. We determined the glioma U87 cell proliferation by Cell Counting Kit-8 (CCK-8) assay, fluorescence, and flow cytometry (FCM). The invasion and migration of U87 cell were tested by wound-scratch assay and martrigel-transwell methods, while its angiogenesis tube formation assay was tested with reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), respectively. Our data suggested that DHA inhibited cell viability in a dose- and time-dependent manner, triggered a stringent G1 cell cycle arrest, and induced cell apoptosis of glioma U87 cells. Tube formation assays showed that DHA significantly decreased glioma cell tube formation in human umbilical vein endothelial cell (HUVC), and suppressed vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) mRNA expression and its release in U87 cells. In addition, wound-scratch assay and martrigel-transwell showed that DHA decreased U87 cell invasion and migration in vitro. These results indicated that DHA might be a valuable candidate for treatment of human glioma.

Key words: Dihydroartemisinin, glioma, proliferation, invasion, angiogenesis.