Anti-Colon Cancer Effects of 6-Shogaol Through G2/M Cell Cycle Arrest by p53/p21-cdc2/cdc25A Crosstalk

Chemopreventive agents can be identified from botanicals. Recently, there has been strong support for the potential of 6-shogaol, a natural compound from dietary ginger (Zingiber officinale), in cancer chemoprevention. However, whether 6-shogaol inhibits the growth of colorectal tumors in vivo remains unknown, and the underlying anticancer mechanisms have not been well characterized. In this work, we observed that 6-shogaol (15 mg/kg) significantly inhibited colorectal tumor growth in a xenograft mouse model. We show that 6-shogaol inhibited HCT-116 and SW-480 cell proliferation with IC50 of 7.5 and 10 mu M, respectively. Growth of HCT-116 cells was arrested at the G2/M phase of the cell cycle, primarily mediated by the up-regulation of p53, the CDK inhibitor p21(waf1/cip1) and GADD45 alpha, and by the down-regulation of cdc2 and cdc25A. Using p53(-/-) and p53(+/+) HCT-116 cells, we confirmed that p53/p21 was the main pathway that contributed to the G2/M cell cycle arrest by 6-shogaol. 6-Shogaol induced apoptosis, mainly through the mitochondrial pathway, and the bcl-2 family might act as a key regulator. Our results demonstrated that 6-shogaol induces cancer cell death by inducing G2/M cell cycle arrest and apoptosis. 6-Shogaol could be an active natural product in colon cancer chemoprevention.