As a type of breast cancer with poorest prognosis and high relapse rate, the triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) is characterized with no expressions of the genes of estrogen receptor (ER), progesterone receptor (PR) and Her2/neu. And because most chemotherapy need to target at one of the three receptors, the lack of gene expressions in TNBC has made it difficult to treat and often require combinatorial therapies. Therefore, discoveries of novel and viable therapeutics are of great need.

Most recently, by collaborating with Dr. QIU Minghua (Kunming Institute of Botany), Dr. CHEN Ceshi (Kunming Institute of Zoology) and his research team proved that Cucurbitacin E (CuE) is a promising treatment of TNBC.

Cucurbitacins are a class of highly oxidized tetracyclic triterpenes present in several plants used in traditional Chinese medicine treatments and has been found previously with anti-tumor effects. In this study, to evaluate the efficacy of CuE on TNBC, the effects of 12 different phytochemical drugs, including CuE, on four different cancer cell lines were compared. The results showed that CuE exerts the most potent anti-cancer effects. CuE significantly decreased cell viability in five TNBC cell lines at low concentration, inhibited TNBC cell growth by inducing cell cycle G2/M phase arrest and apoptosis, reduced expression of Cyclin D1, Survivin, XIAP, Bcl2, and Mcl-1 in MDA-MB-468 and SW527, and within MDA-MB-468 and significantly increased activation of JNK and inhibited activation of AKT and ERK.

This study fulfills our understanding of the anti-cancer effects of CuE, indicating CuE as a promising novel treatment of TNBC. The main findings have been published on PloS One.