Ursolic acid-induced apoptosis in K562 cells involving upregulation of PTEN gene expression and inactivation of the PI3K/Akt pathway.

Ursolic acid (UA), a pentacyclic triterpenoid derived from a variety of medicinal plants, exhibits potent anticancer activity against many types of cancer cells. However, the anticancer mechanism of UA is not clearly understood. Suppression of phosphatase and a tensin homolog deleted on chromosome 10 (PTEN) gene expression leading to activation of the phosphatidylinositol-3-OH kinase (PI3K)/Akt pathway has been observed in many cancers including leukemia, making the PTEN gene and PI3K/Akt pathway a central target for cancer therapy. Here, we demonstrated that UA was able to inhibit growth, induce apoptosis in a human chronic myelogenous leukemia cell line (K562 cells) via upregulation of PTEN gene expression, inhibit Akt kinase activity, change mitochondrial transmembrane potential and reduce the release of cytochrome c and the activity of caspases. These results suggest that UA may elicit its strong antitumor effects via upregulation of the PTEN gene and inhibition of the PI3K/Akt pathway.