Inhibition of invasion and metastasis by DMBT, a novel trehalose derivative, through Akt/GSK-3β/β-catenin pathway in B16BL6 cells

•DMBT, a novel trehalose derivative, is one of brartemicin analogs.•DMBT had no obvious inhibitory or cytotoxic effect in B16BL6 cells.•DMBT could inhibit invasion and metastasis both in vitro and in vivo.•DMBT decreased the expression of MMP-9 and VEGF.•DMBT suppressed the expression of p-GSK-3β, p-Akt, p-mTOR and β-catenin.

Invasion, either directly or via metastasis formation, is the main cause of death in cancer patients. Development of efficient anti-invasive agents is an important research challenge. 6,6′-bis (2,3-dimethoxybenzoyl)-a, a-d-trehalose (DMBT), one of brartemicin analogs, was found to be the most potent anti-invasive agent, but the underlying mechanisms are poorly understood. Our current study was to explore the effects of DMBT on invasion and metastasis in B16BL6 cells. Antiproliferation assay and trypan blue exclusion assay showed that no obvious inhibitory or cytotoxic effect of DMBT was found in B16BL6 cells. Wound healing demonstrated that DMBT could inhibit cell migration compared with the normal group. Transwell experiments showed that DMBT could significantly inhibit invasion to the reconstituted basement membrane (P < 0.01). We examined the effects of lung metastasis produced by highly metastatic B16BL6 melanoma cells by using experimental metastasis models and BLI analysis. DMBT could significantly suppress lung metastasis in mice. Results from immunohistochemical staining, Western blotting and real-time PCR indicated that the chemopreventive effect of DMBT was attributed to the inhibition of the VEGF and MMP-9 through Akt/GSK-3β/β-catenin and Akt/mTOR signaling pathways. These results suggested that DMBT could be a promising lead molecule for the anti-metastasis and serve as a therapeutic agent to inhibit cancer cell invasion and metastasis.

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