(-)-Menthol inhibits DNA topoisomerases I, II alpha and beta and promotes NF-kappaB expression in human gastric cancer SNU-5 cells.

It has been reported that (-)-Menthol can inhibit the growth of rat liver epithelial tumor cells and is a potent chemopreventive agent. The purpose of the present experiment was to examine and identify cellular processes leading to cell death which are affected by (-)-Menthol in human gastric SNU-5 cancer cells. Cell death (cytotoxicity) was examined and analyzed by trypan blue stain and flow cytometric methods. It was shown that (-)-Menthol inhibited the proliferation of the cells in a dose- and time-dependent manner, inhibited topoisomerase I, IIa and IIbeta, but promoted the levels of NF-kappaB gene expression based on the Western blot and polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and cDNA microarray methods. These data suggest that (-)-Menthol may induce cytotoxicity through inhibiting gene expression of topoisomerase I, IIalpha and IIbeta and promoting the gene expression of NF-kappaB in SNU-5 cells.