The antitumor effects of Araloside A extracted from the root bark of Aralia elata on human kidney cancer cell lines

Aralia elata was used as therapeutic medicine in oriental courtiers a few hundreds years ago. As one important constituent extracted from Aralia elata, Araloside A has been shown to treat gastric ulcers, hepatitis, and arrhythmias. It is not yet known, however, whether Araloside A may induce cell apoptosis in renal cell carcinoma. We therefore examined the antitumor effects of Araloside A on human kidney cancer cell lines GRC-1 and 786-O. We found that Araloside A 1, 3, 10, 30 and 100 μM caused a considerable reduction of cellular viability of GRC-1 1 and 786-O cells in a dose- and time-dependent manner. The number of Tunnel-positive cancer cells was also higher in cells treated with Araloside A than untreated cells. The real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) techniques showed that Araloside A was able to increase the expression of bax mRNA and inhibited the expression of bcl-2 mRNA. Conclusively, Araloside A has a remarkably antitumor effect on kidney tumor cells through regulating bax/bcl-2 ratio.   Key words: Araloside A, antitumor, bax/bcl-2.