Translational Medicine
Open Access

Abstract

The Anticancer Mechanism of an Approved Disease Modifying Herb Medicine:Total Glucosides of Paeony Target both EGFR and HER-2 in Lung Cancer Cell Lines

Yang Tang, Yidi Cui, Lingling Xu, Siwen Wang, Meng Zhang, Yue Sun, Hang Xiao, Huashi Guan, Mingzhuang Zhu, Peiju Qiu and Lijuan Zhang

The high cost and slow pace of the pharmaceutical industry in bringing novel anti-cancer drugs for waiting patients indicates that the current business model for drug development needs innovation. We assumed that studying anticancer activities from approved disease modifying medicines might provide a possible way to lower the cost and speed up anti-cancer drug development. To test the idea, we studied the molecular mechanisms of anticancer effect of Total Glucosides of Paeony (TGP), a Chinese State Food and Drug Administration approved drug, in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) cell-based systems. NSCLC is the leading cause of death from all cancers. Epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) is a major and effective molecular target of anti-NSCLC therapy because EGFR is over-expressed in 50-80 percent of NSCLC. We discovered that TGP inhibited phosphorylation of two most prominent members of EGFR family, EGFR and HER-2, in addition to suppressing EGFR and HER-2 expression in lung cancer cell lines tested. Subsequently, TGP showed expected anti-cellular proliferation, pro-apoptosis, and cell cycle arrest properties of EGFR inhibition in the cancer cell lines tested. Therefore, searching anti-EGFR and HER-2 activities among approved medicines might be a reasonable approach for novel anti-NSCLC drug discovery.