Protein regulation and Apoptotic induction in human breast carcinoma cells (MCF-7) through lectin from G. beauts

Lectins are proteins that show a variety of biological activities. Nevertheless, information on lectin from Gluttonous beauts and their anticancer activities are very limited. In this study, we purified a lectin from hemolymph of G. beauts and identified its molecular weight to be 66 kDa. The effect of lectin at different concentrations (μg/mL) on the cell growth and apoptosis were evaluated against MCF-7 and MCF-10A cells, whereas cytotoxicity to the MCF-7 cells mediated by lectin was observed and the mechanism of action of the lectin in including apoptosis in cancer cells via the intrinsic pathway was also proposed. The MCF-7 cells were employed for in vitro studies on cytotoxicity, induction of apoptosis and apoptotic DNA fragmentation. In MCF-10A cells lectin did not show any adverse effect even at higher concentration. Cell cycle analysis also showed a significant cell cycle arrest on selected cells after lectin treatment. Western blotting suggested that lectin up regulates the apoptotic protein expression in MCF-7 cells while it down regulates the level of Bcl-2 expression.