Furanodiene, a natural small molecule suppresses metastatic breast cancer cell migration and invasion in vitro

Furanodiene is a bioactive compound isolated from Curcuma wenyujin Y. H. Chen et C. Ling (C. wenyujin). It is one of the major components of volatile oil extracted from C. wenyujin. Furanodiene has anti-tumor activities in various cancer cell lines, as well as anti-metastatic activities. However, the underlying mechanisms of anti-metastatic activities of furanodiene have not been well investigated. In this study, we demonstrated that at low concentrations (5–25 μM), furanodiene inhibited adhesion, migration and invasion of breast cancer cells, but it did not induce cytotoxicity, apoptosis and cell cycle arrest. Furthermore, the underlying mechanisms for the anti-metastatic activity of furanodinene were also investigated. Furanodiene down-regulated the integrin αV expression, β-catenin expression, focal adhesion kinase (FAK) phosphorylation, Akt phosphorylation, and PI3 kinase p85 phosphorylation, and all of these were involved in modulation of the tumor metastasis process. In addition, an interference of metastasis was also observed in MDA-MB-231 cells through the regulation of the matrix metalloproteinase 9 (MMP-9) releases. Our results suggested that furanodiene might be the primary contributor to the anti-cancer effects of volatile oil extracts, and it might be a good therapeutic target for highly metastatic breast cancer.