Oleanolic acid induces apoptosis in human leukemia cells through caspase activation and poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase cleavage.

It has been shown that Fructus Ligustri Lucidi (FLL), a promising traditional Chinese medicine, can inhibit the growth of tumors. However, the effective component and molecular mechanism of FLL act to inhibit tumor proliferation are unclear. In this study, we demonstrated that oleanolic acid (OA), a principal chemical component of FLL, inhibited the proliferation of human leukemia HL60 cells in culture. MTT assay showed that treatment of HL60 cells with FLL crude extracts or OA dramatically blocked the growth of target tumor cell in a time- and dose-dependent manner. Morphological changes of the nuclei and DNA fragmentation showed that apoptotic cell death occurred in the HL60 cells after treating with FLL extracts (20 mg/ml) or OA (3.65 x 10(-2) mg/ml). Furthermore, flow cytometry assay showed that treatment of HL60 cells with FLL or OA caused an increased accumulation of G(1) and sub-G(1) subpopulations. Western blot analysis showed that caspase-9 and caspase-3 were activated, accompanied by the cleavage of poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP) in the target cells during FLL- or OA-induced apoptosis. These results suggest that OA acts as the effective component of FLL by exerting its cytotoxicity towards target tumor cells through activation of caspases and cleavage of PARP.