The anticancer effects of actinoporin RTX-A from the sea anemone Heteractis crispa (=Radianthus macrodactylus)

Four isoforms of actinoporins were isolated in 2002–2004 from the tropical sea anemone Heteractis crispa (=Radianthus macrodactylus). Their potent hemolytic activities and effects on Ehrlich ascites carcinoma bearing mice were also studied. In this study, the individual actinoporin (RTX-A) demonstrated potential cancer-preventive activity at extremely low and non-cytotoxic concentrations. The substance suppressed the malignant transformation of mouse JB6 P+ Cl41 cells stimulated by epidermal growth factor (EGF) in soft agar with the inhibition of number of the colonies C50 (INCC50) = 0.034 nM. Actinoporin RTX-A also was shown to inhibit the phenotype expression of HeLa human cancer cells with an INCC50 = 0.03 nM. The cytotoxic effect of RTX-A against JB6 P+ Cl41 cells and HeLa, THP-1, MDA-MB-231, and SNU-C4 human tumor cell lines was high (IC50 = 0.57, 2.26, 1.11, 30.0 and 4.66 nM), but significantly less than their capacity to suppress tumor cell colony formation or phenotype expression. RTX-A also induced apoptosis and inhibited basal AP-1, NF-κB, and p53-dependent transcriptional activity in JB6 Cl41 cells. These results confirmed that actinoporin RTX-A from H. crispa, at least partially, might exhibit cancer-preventive and anticancer cytotoxic properties through the induction of p53-independent apoptosis and inhibition of the oncogenic AP-1 and NF-κB nuclear factors activity.