DEHYDROLEUCODINE INDUCES A TRANSIENT ARREST OF HeLa CELLS IN MITOSIS.

COSTANTINO VV, AMAYA MC, LOSINNO AD, BERTOLDI MV AND LÓPEZ LA.

San Luis

Congreso; 47 th Annual Meeting Argentine Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology; 2011

Sociedad Argentina de Investigacion Bioquimica

Cancer is a set of diseases in which the body´s cells become abnormal and divide without control. There are countless efforts to find agents to block the uncontrolled cell proliferation. Many sesquiterpene lactones (SL) have been isolated from medicinal plants and present a wide spectrum of biological activity. Dehydroleucodine (DhL) is a SL isolated from Artemisia douglasiana Besser, a plant that grows up in the west of Argentina. Previous results from our laboratory showed that DhL delays the proliferation of HeLa cells, arresting them in G2/M phase of the cell cycle. In this work we analyzed whether DhL affects M phase of HeLa cells. Cells synchronized in G1/S by double thymidine treatment, were stimulated to proliferate with 10% fetal bovine serum in presence of 0-20 μM DhL. Images the cells were obtained from time 0 to 32 h of treatment, every 15 min using a Nikon Eclipse TE 2000-U microscope. The treatment with 10 and 20 μM DhL delayed the entry of cells to mitosis (4.33 ± 1.85 and 4.52 ± 1.06 h respectively) and increased the time that the cells spend in division (7.01 ± 1.07 and 6.43 ± 0.58 h, respectively). DhL extended 0.17 ± 0.04, 5.07 ± 0.58 and 1.78 ± 0.24 h the time of Prophase, Metaphase to Telophase and Cytokinesis respectively. These results show that DhL generated a delay of HeLa cells to enter to mitosis and an increase of the time that spend in division.