[Anti-metastasis of celastrol on esophageal cancer cells and its mechanism].

Celastrol is a quinone methyl terpene extracted from the traditional Chinese medicine Tripterygium wilfordii, which has anti-inflammatory, immune suppression and pharmacological activities, as well as anti-tumor activity. The effects of celastrol on adhesion, migration and invasion of esophageal cancer cells were investigated in this experiment. Human esophageal cancer cell line ECA-109 was used. The inhibition of ECA-109 cells' adhesion induced by celastrol was measured by MTT test. The inhibition of ECA-109 cells' migration induced by celastrol was measured by scratch test. The invasion inhibition of ECA-109 cells induced by celastrol was measured by Transwell experiment. Quantitative real-time PCR and Western blot were used to determine the effects of different concentrations of celastrol on integrin family and Wnt signaling pathway in ECA-109 cells. The results showed that celastrol inhibited adhesion, migration and invasion of ECA-109 cells and expressions of integrins β1, β4, αv and β-Catenin, LRP6 in Wnt signal pathway in a dose-dependent manner. Therefore the study suggests that celastrol could inhibit the cell metastasis of esophageal cancer by inhibiting the Wnt signaling pathway and the expressions of integrins.