These results confirm that SB203580 and Z-DEVD-FMK could inhibit the activity of P-p38 MAPK and caspase-3. But the inhibition of SB203580 was stronger than

Z-DEVD-FMK, comparatively (Figure 5). Figure 5 Results of protein expression. Data are expressed as mean ± S.D and evaluated by one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA). Results are representative of three replicates (P < 0.01). Discussion Apoptosis is a very complex process with the complexity and diversity, different cells in different stress have different signal transduction pathways. Extracellular signals how pass to cells and cause cells to the corresponding reaction is very important to the occurrence of apoptosis in the process of cell apoptosis. The MAPK (mitogen-activated protein kinase) system is a cluster of Depsipeptide purchase intracellular serine/threonine protein kinases, playing an important role in a variety of signal transduction pathways of the mammalian cells. In recent years, many research report that apoptosis signal transduction and activation of caspase have a closely relationship, and have found 16 members of caspase family in mammalian cells [14–16]. All the LEE011 cell line Caspase exit in the form of inactive

zymogen, can lead to caspase cascade reaction after be activitied, and eventually induce apoptosis. Undynamic caspase-3 will trigger apoptosis when it is activitied, and play a very important role when cells started apoptosis as the central Selleck CHIR99021 effector of apoptosis [17–20]. Our previous work has demonstrated that DADS transiently activates both p38MAPK and p42/44MAPK while it induces apoptosis in a time and dose dependent manner in human HepG2 hepatoma cells[13]. The present study focuses on the role of p38MAPK and caspase-3 in cell apoptosis and DADS-induced apoptosis. To test the relation of p38MAPK and caspase-3 in the apoptosis process of human HepG2 cells induced by DADS, we used the inhibitors of p38MAPK (SB203580) and caspase-3 (Z-DEVD-FMK), the methods of MTT, flow cytometry

analysis and western blot, The results presented in this study established a potential role for inhibitors of p38MAPK and caspase-3 in DADS-induced apoptosis. First, inhibitor (SB203580 or Z-DEVD-FMK) have the effect of inhibitory activity on p38MAPK and caspase-3. Second, a combination treatment with both DADS and inhibitor (SB203580 or Z-DEVD-FMK) decreases the inhibitory and apoptotic activity of HepG2 cells increased compared with DADS-treated (Figure 1, Figure 3, Figure 4 and Figure 5). The combined effect suggests a co-chemocytotoxic value in human HepG2 cells. In conclusion, our results show that p38MAPK and caspase-3 are involved in the process of DADS-induced apoptosis in human HepG2 cells and interact with each other. At present, there have made some progress on the effect of MAPK signaling pathway in cellular apoptosis, but need in-depth study to fully reveal its mechanisms of action.