A polysaccharide from the fruiting bodies of Agaricus blazei Murill induces caspase-dependent apoptosis in human leukemia HL-60 cells.

Polysaccharides are the major active ingredients of fungus Agaricus blazei for treating and preventing cancer. However, there are no reports showing anti-tumor activity of A. blazei polysaccharides (ABP) on human leukemia (HL)-60 cells in vitro and in vivo. In this study, we demonstrated that ABP efficiently inhibited proliferation of cultured HL-60 cells, which was associated with the induction of apoptosis. The increase in ABP-induced apoptosis was accompanied by loss of mitochondria membrane potential (∆Ψm), cytochrome c release from the mitochondria, activation of caspase-3, degradation of poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP), and the elevated ratio of Bcl-2-associated X (Bax)/B-cell lymphoma 2 (Bcl-2). Moreover, z-DEVD-fmk, a caspase-3 inhibitor, reversed the cytotoxic effects and apoptotic characteristics induced by ABP in HL-60 cells. Furthermore, we confirmed that ABP could obviously inhibit the solid cancer growth of leukemia HL-60 in tumor xenograft model. These data demonstrated that ABP effectively induced the apoptosis of HL-60 cells via a signaling cascade of mitochondrial caspase-3-dependent pathway.