Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2014 Feb;68(1):129-35.
doi: 10.1016/j.biopha.2013.08.010. Epub 2013 Aug 30.

Ellagic acid induces a dose- and time-dependent depolarization of mitochondria and activation of caspase-9 and -3 in human neuroblastoma cells

Christina Fjæraa Alfredsson  1 , Menglei Ding  1 , Qiu-Li Liang  1 , Birgitta E Sundström  1 , Eewa Nånberg  2
Affiliations

Ellagic acid induces a dose- and time-dependent depolarization of mitochondria and activation of caspase-9 and -3 in human neuroblastoma cells

Christina Fjæraa Alfredsson et al. Biomed Pharmacother. 2014 Feb.

Abstract

The polyphenol ellagic acid is found in many natural food sources and has been proposed as a candidate compound for clinical applications due to its anti-oxidative capacity and as a potential anti-tumorigenic compound. The objective of the present study was to evaluate the sensitivity to and possible apoptosis mechanism induced by ellagic acid in neuronal tumor cells. As a model the human neuroblastoma SH-SY5Y cell line was used. The methods applied were bright field and phase contrast microscopy, XTT- and LDH-assays, western blot, and flow cytometric analysis of DNA degradation and mitochondrial membrane potential. Ellagic acid treatment was found to induce a reduction in cell number preceded by alterations of the mitochondrial membrane potential and activation of caspase-9 and -3, DNA-fragmentation and cell death by apoptosis. The apoptotic cell death studied was not due to anoikis since it was significant in the adherent fraction of the cells. We conclude that ellagic acid induces dose- and time-dependent apoptosis, at least partly by the mitochondrial pathway, in an embryonal neuronal tumor cell system. This finding is in agreement with previously reported data on adult carcinoma cells thus suggesting a more general effect of ellagic acid on tumor cells.

Keywords: Caspase; Ellagic acid; Mitochondrial membrane potential.

PubMed Disclaimer

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

Publication types

MeSH terms

LinkOut - more resources

  NODES
admin 2
twitter 2