Cutaneous melanoma is one of the most aggressive forms of skin cancer. Arctigenin, one of the major bioactive compo-nents of Arctii Fructus, has been reported to exhibit antioxidant, antitumor and anti-inflammatory activities. In the pre-sent study, we investigated the effect of arctigenin on induction of apoptosis in highly metastatic SK-MEL-28 human melanoma cells. Arctigenin inhibited growth of SK-MEL-28 cells in a dose-dependent manner. Treatment of SK-MEL-28cells with arctigenin caused cleavage of caspases 3, 7 and 9, and poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase in a dose-dependent manner. Furthermore, acetylation of histone H3 and H4 in the SK-MEL-28 cells was dramatically increased by arctigenin treatment. Collectively, these findings indicate that arctigenin-induces apoptosis of SK-MEL-28 melanoma cells via activation of caspases and histone acetylation.
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