title: Luteolin decreases invasiveness, deactivates STAT3 signaling, and reverses interleukin-6 induced epithelial-mesenchymal transition and matrix metalloproteinase secretion of pancreatic cancer cells.
abstract: Luteolin, a flavone, has been shown to exhibit anticancer properties. Here, we investigated whether luteolin affects epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) and invasiveness of pancreatic cancer cell lines and their underlying mechanism. Pancreatic cancer cell lines PANC-1 and SW1990 were used in our study, and their EMT characters, matrix metalloproteinase (MMP) expression level, invasiveness, and signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 (STAT3) activity were determined after luteolin treatment. We also treated pancreatic cancer cells with interleukin-6 (IL-6) to see whether IL-6-induced activation of STAT3, EMT, and MMP secretion was affected by luteolin. We found that luteolin inhibits EMT and MMP2, MMP7, and MMP9 expression in a dose-dependent manner, similar to STAT3 signaling. Through Transwell assay, we found that invasiveness of pancreatic cancer cells was inhibited by luteolin. EMT characters and MMP secretion increase with STAT3 activity after IL-6 treatment and these effects, caused by IL-6, were inhibited by luteolin. We concluded that luteolin inhibits invasiveness of pancreatic cancer cells, and we speculated that luteolin inhibits EMT and MMP secretion likely through deactivation of STAT3 signaling. Luteolin has potential antitumor effects and merits further investigation.
authors.affiliation: Department of Surgery, The First Affiliated Hospital, Wenzhou Medical University, Wenzhou, Zhejiang Province, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Xince
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Huang
authors.affiliation: Department of Surgery, The First Affiliated Hospital, Wenzhou Medical University, Wenzhou, Zhejiang Province, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Shengjie
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Dai
authors.affiliation: Department of Surgery, The First Affiliated Hospital, Wenzhou Medical University, Wenzhou, Zhejiang Province, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Juji
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Dai
authors.affiliation: Department of Surgery, The First Affiliated Hospital, Wenzhou Medical University, Wenzhou, Zhejiang Province, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Yuwu
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Xiao
authors.affiliation: Department of Surgery, The First Affiliated Hospital, Wenzhou Medical University, Wenzhou, Zhejiang Province, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Yongyu
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Bai
authors.affiliation: Department of Surgery, The First Affiliated Hospital, Wenzhou Medical University, Wenzhou, Zhejiang Province, People's Republic of China ; Zhejiang Provincial Top Key Discipline in Surgery, Wenzhou Key Laboratory of Surgery, Wenzhou, Zhejiang Province, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Bicheng
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: Department of Surgery, The First Affiliated Hospital, Wenzhou Medical University, Wenzhou, Zhejiang Province, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Mengtao
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Zhou
keywords: STAT3; epithelial–mesenchymal transition; luteolin; matrix metalloproteinase