Lycorine, a natural alkaloid extracted from the Amaryllidaceae plant family, was reported to various physiological and pharmacological effects including anti-cancer activity. Nevertheless, there is no report of the anticancer effect of lycorine in oral cancer cells. The effects of lycorine on cell proliferation and apoptosis were examined through trypan blue exclusion assay, 4’-6-diamidino-2-phenylindole (DAPI) stain, Live/Dead assay, Western blot analysis and RT-PCR. Lycorine suppressed cell viability and induced apoptosis in MC3 and HSC-3 cell lines. Lycorine decreased survivin protein but did not affect its mRNA. It regulated survivin through accelerating protein degradation in a time-dependent manner although neither proteasome nor lysosome was not associated with lycorine-mediated protein degradation. Collectively, our results suggest that lycorine may be a potential therapeutic anti-cancer drug candidate for the treatment of human oral cancer.

• Joseph H. Jeong(Department of Developmental Biology and Genomics, College of Veterinary Medicine, Seoul National University and Korea Mouse Phenotyping Center) | 정요셉
• Nam-Pyo Cho(Department of Oral Pathology, School of Dentistry, Institute of Oral Bioscience and Biodegradable material, Chonbuk National University) | 조남표
• Boonsil Jang(Department of Oral Pathology, School of Dentistry, Institute of Oral Bioscience and Biodegradable material, Chonbuk National University) | 장분실 Correspondence