title: Pachymic acid inhibits tumorigenesis in gallbladder carcinoma cells.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Gallbladder cancer, with high aggressivity and extremely poor prognosis, is the most common malignancy of the bile duct. Thus, seeking targets gallbladder tumor cells is an attractive goal towards improving clinical treatment.
  
  
  METHODS
  In this study, we investigated the effects of pachymic acid (PA) on the tumorigenesis of human gallbladder cancer cells.
  
  
  RESULTS
  We found that PA significantly reduced cell growth in a dose- and time-dependent fashion. Meanwhile, cell cycle arrest at G0 phase was induced by PA. PA also significantly inhibited cancer cell migration, invasion in a dose-dependent manner. Interestingly, we demonstrated that cancer cell adhesion ability was suppressed dose-dependently, which may contribute to the inhibition of cell invasion. Finally, we showed that PA inhibited AKT and ERK signaling pathways. And oncoproteins, such as PCNA, ICAM-1 and RhoA which are involved intumorigenesis, were also downregulated by PA.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Our study reveals that PA is able to inhibit gallbladder cancer tumorigenesis involving affection of AKT and ERK signaling pathways. Together, these results encourage further studies of PA as a promising candidate for gallbladder cancer therapy.
authors.affiliation: Department of General Surgery, Qilu Hospital, Shandong University Jinan 250012, P. R. China.
authors.forename: Yueguang
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: Department of General Surgery, Qilu Hospital, Shandong University Jinan 250012, P. R. China.
authors.forename: Peilong
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Lian
authors.affiliation: Department of General Surgery, Qilu Hospital, Shandong University Jinan 250012, P. R. China.
authors.forename: Yanfeng
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: Department of General Surgery, Qilu Hospital, Shandong University Jinan 250012, P. R. China.
authors.forename: Kesen
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Xu
keywords: Pachymic acid; adhesion; gallbladder cancer; growth; invasion; migration