Potential Anticancer Effect of Thymoquinone on Glioblastoma Cancer Cells through Alteration in CTSB and CTSD Gene Expression Level

Background

Glioblastoma is one of the most aggressive and rapidly growing brain tumors. Current therapeutic approaches have proven largely ineffective in treating this malignancy, resulting in a very low survival rate. Accordingly, finding new therapeutic strategies seems inevitable. Recently, some molecular mechanisms that help cancer cells survive, and grow have been elucidated, and targeting critical molecules involved in these processes brings new hopes to cancer treatment. CTSB and CTSD are two important proteins associated with invasion, angiogenesis, and metastasis, which are overexpressed in glioblastoma. A considerable body of evidence demonstrated that Thymoquinone, the main bioactive component of black seeds, has anticancer power against a range of various cancers. The current experiment was designed to determine whether TQ can modulate the mRNA expression level of CTSB and CTSD in glioblastoma cells.

Methods

An in vitro study was conducted and relative mRNA level of CTSB and CTSD were assessed using quantitative real-time RT-RCR in U87MG cells treated with 30 or 60 μM concentrations of TQ at two time points; 12 and 24 h post-exposure to capture dynamic changes in gene expression at early and mid-phase intervals.

Results

Although there was no reduction in the relative expression of CTSB and CTSD in cells exposed to TQ for 12 h, the mRNA level of both genes significantly decreased at 60 μM of TQ after 24 h exposure.

Conclusion

The data presented revealed that at certain concentration and time point, TQ effectively targets two key genes involved in metastasis. Thus, it can be concluded that TQ holds potential as a promising candidate for glioblastoma treatment.