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eCAM Advance Access published online on October 29, 2009
eCAM, doi:10.1093/ecam/nep175
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© The Author(s) 2009. Published by Oxford University Press.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.5/uk/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

The Herb Medicine Formula ‘Chong Lou Fu Fang’ Increases the Cytotoxicity of Chemotherapeutic Agents and Down-regulates the Expression of Chemotherapeutic Agent Resistance-related Genes in Human Gastric Cancer Cells In Vitro

Yongping Liu1,2,*, Yang Ling2,*, Wenjing Hu1, Li Xie1, Lixia Yu1, Xiaoping Qian1, Binxia Zhang3 and Baorui Liu1

1Department of Oncology, Nanjing Drum Tower Hospital, Nanjing University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Zhongshan Road 321, Nanjing 210008, China, 2Clinical Oncology Laboratory, Changzhou Tumor Hospital Affiliated to Medical School of Suzhou University, Huaide Road 44 and 3Department of Internal Medicine, Traditional Chinese Medicine Hospital of Changzhou, Heping Road 156, Changzhou, 213002, China

The herb medicine formula ‘Chong Lou Fu Fang’ (CLFF) has efficacy in inhibiting the proliferation of human gastric cancer in vitro and in vivo. To explore the potentially useful combination of CLFF with chemotherapeutic agents commonly used in gastric cancer therapy, we assess the interaction between CLFF and these chemotherapeutic agents in both SGC-7901cell lines and BGC-823 cell lines using a median effect analysis and apoptosis analysis, and we also investigate the influence of CLFF on chemotherapeutic agent-associated gene expression. The synergistic analysis indicated that CLFF had a synergistic effect on the cytotoxicity of 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) in a relative broad dose inhibition range (20–95% fraction affected in SGC-7901cell lines and 5–65% fraction affected in BGC-823 cell lines), while the synergistic interaction between CLFF and oxaliplatin or docetaxel only existed in a low dose inhibition range (≤50% fraction affected in both cell lines). Combination of CLFF and chemotherapeutic agents could also induce apoptosis in a synergistic manner. After 24 h, CLFF alone or CLFF combination with chemotherapeutic agents could significantly suppress the levels of expression of chemotherapeutic agent resistance related genes in gastric cancer cells. Our findings indicate that there are useful synergistic interactions between CLFF and chemotherapeutic agents in gastric cancer cells, and the possible mechanisms might be partially due to the down-regulation of chemotherapeutic agent resistance related genes and the synergistic apoptotic effect.

Keywords: apoptosis – combination index – down-regulation – gene expression – synergy

For reprints and all correspondence: Baorui Liu, Department of Oncology, Nanjing Drum Tower Hospital, Nanjing University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Zhongshan Road 321, Nanjing 210008, China. Tel/Fax: +86-25-83304616, ext. 76382; E-mail: liubaorui026{at}yahoo.cn

*These authors contributed equally to this work.

Received May 31, 2009; accepted October 2, 2009


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