Studying the Anticancer Mechanism of the Promising Compound 2B2D by using Microarray Techniques

Microarray is a modern technique which allows studying, discovering, probing and analyzing the expression of thousands genes, even the whole genome in only one experiment. The technique proves to be a powerful tool for cancer research especially at molecular level. Employing the potential anticancer compound 1-(5,7-dimetoxy-2,2-dimetyl-2H-cromen-8-yl)-but-2-en-1-on (2B2D in short) isolated from the Vietnamese plant Mallotus apelta, and MCF-7, the human breast cancer cells as research objects, we analyzed the mechanism of action for this compound at the molecular level. The results showed 742 genes that were effected with equal to or over a twofold change under 2B2D treatment. Among those, 386 genes were up-regulated while the other 356 were down-regulated. The nuclear factor (erythroid-derived 2, regulatory factor X domain containing 1, fibroblast growth factor receptor 3 (achondroplasia, thanatophoric dwarfism) and E2F transcription factor 8 were the most stimulated by this compound. The genes that are classified as solute carrier family 7 (cationic amino acid transporter, system) member 11, kelch-like 24 and Hypothetical LOC344887 were mostly down regulated in action. Linked these results to a connectivity map database, the data showed that 2B2D inhibited the cancer cells' growth by working on NFκ-B pathway. The results from luminescence NFκ-B assay also confirmed this conclusion.