Effect of Ergolide From Inula Oculus-Christi on Apoptosis and Cell Cycle Mechanism in Breast Cancer Cell Line

Background and aim: ergolide belongs to the family of asteraceae and it was traditionally wide used in treatment of kidney stones and urethra infection; besides, recently the potent sesquiterpene ergolide isolated from inula species has gained increasing attention in cancer treatments.methods: viability, metabolic activity, proliferation evaluated using trypan blue, mtt assay, flow cytometery and acridine orange respectively. moreover, qrt-pcr was performed to examine the expression of p21, p27, bcl-2, sirt1, caspase3 and atg10.results: ergolide exert cytotoxicity against mcf-7 and mda-mb-468 human breast cancer cells. it also caused ros production (increased sirt1 expression) during early hours after treatment of cells which was then followed by cell cycle arrest in g0/g1 (increased expression of p21 and p27) phase and autophagy induction (expression atg10 increased). also, the expression of bcl-2 and caspase3 reduction and increased respectively.conclusion: this study demonstrated that ergolide was capable to extend chemotherapeutic sensitivity in mcf-7 and mda-mb-468 human breast cancer cells by reducing bcl-2 expression. therefore, it might act as a promising anticancer agent for the treatment of breast cancer.