Regulation of pipernonaline on biological functions of human prostate cancer cells: based on microarray analysis

Abstract

It has been reported that pipernonaline isolated from Piper longum Linn. has a wide biochemical and pharmacological effect, including antitumor activity in prostate cancer PC-3 cells. However, its mechanism and expression pattern of many genes involved in biological functions are not clearly understood. To perform the gene expression study in PC-3 cells treated with pipernonaline, we used cDNA microarray chip composed of 44,000 human cDNA probes. As a result, cell cycle-related genes, apoptosis-related genes and cell proliferation/growth-related genes have been identified in gene ontology of DAVID database. These results suggest that pipernonaline has antitumor activity by regulating the expression pattern of genes involved in biological signaling pathway in prostate cancer PC-3 cells. Further, additional analysis of these microarray data can be a useful tool to identify the mechanism and discovery of novel gene in cancer therapy.