Experimental Study On The Effect Of Tubulin Polymerization And Antitumor In Vitro Affected By β-Elemene

OBJECTIVE:To study the effect of tubulin polymerization and antitumor in vitro affected byβ-elemene.METHODS:Tubulin isolated from bovine was employed to study the effect of tubulin polymerization induced by drugβ-elemene by turbidimetry.Taxol and VCR were set as positive control of the experiment,DMSO was set as the blank control.Cultivated cells with different concentration of β-elemene for different time to observe microtubule morphology under EM and to check cell viability of cells by MTT methods.RESULTS: experiments were done on the effect of tubulin polymerization inhibition and antitumor ,and the effect of ultrastructures of cultured tumor cells' microtubules affected byβ-elemene in vitro was observed.The results showed that inβ-elemene Groups with five different doses,the maximal inhibitory rates of tubulin polymerization were 5.8%,15.7%,26.5%,53.8%,and82.4% respectively.IC50 was 5.12±0.31.It is suggested thatβ-elemene had a significant inhibitory effect on tubulin polymerization,and the effect show some dose-effect relatinship. The mechanism of action ontubulin polymeriztion was different from that of Taxol which is a microtubule-stabling agent.Under EM we observed thatβ-elemene inhibited tubulin polymerization of cultured tumor cells in vitro significantly,and also showed some dose-effect relationship(p<0.05).However,it had no effect on microtubules of the cutured human normal cells in vitro.The study onβ-elemene antitumor effect indicated thatβ-elemene had a significant effect of antitumor;the effect of antitumor also showed some dose-effect and time-effect relationship(p<0.01).CONCLUSION:The results suggest that β-elemene may be a significant agent of tubulin polymerization inhibition and antitumor in vitro,and it has no adverse effect on the cultured human nomorl cells.