Ursolic acid induce anoikis by suppress metabolism in ovarian cancer cells

Abstract Background Although there are some pieces of literatures reported that ursolic acid possess the ability of anti-cancer, its mechanism is still not well elucidated. Methods In this study, we probed the whole transcriptional profile with ovarian cancer cell line SKOV3 treated with ursolic acid. Then we got the diferential expressed genes and performed functional pathways enrichment. The Results revealed that immune response associated pathways were significantly downregulated. Interestingly, we found cell metabolism associated pathways were also inhibited, both glucose metabolism and amino acid metabolism. This implied a large alteration in ursolic acid treated transcriptional profile. Results In vitro, we validated glycolysis and mitochondria ability were both inhibited by ursolic acid, following with a reduced ATP production. Energy supply is quite important for cancer metastasis, then we detected cells anoikis with or without ursolic acid treatment.The Results suggested ursolic acid decreased sphere size in a dose-dependent mean. Conclusion All these indicates ursolic acid can induce anoikis by down regulating cell metabolism.Ursolic acid is a potential drug to prevent ovarian cancer metastasis.