Unveiling the anti-cancer mechanisms of calotropin: Insights into cell growth inhibition, cell cycle arrest, and metabolic regulation in human oral squamous carcinoma cells (HSC-3)

Calotropin, a cardiac glycoside obtained from the plant Calotropis gigantea, has demonstrated promising potential as an anti-tumorigenesis compound.

Overall, our findings shed an experimental evidence on how calotropin inhibits the HSC-3 oral squamous cancer cell growth, highlighting the drug's potential as a treatment for oral cancer. Further, investigation on in-vivo experiment is warranted to explore its potential mechanism of action and to develop a novel drug towards clinical trial.

The main objective of this study was to investigate the potential anti-cancer properties of calotropin against HSC-3 oral squamous cancer cells and to elucidate the underlying mechanisms involved in its action. Material and method: Calotropin were treated in HSC-3 to evaluate cell viability by MTT assay. Flow cytometry analysis divulged that calotropin G0/G1 phase cell cycle arrest and apoptosis in HSC-3 cells. Calotropin displayed inhibitory properties against aerobic glycolysis, a metabolic alteration using glucose uptaken, lactose production and LDHA activity assays. Furthermore, migration and invasion assays help that calotropin has ability to reduce the migratory and invasive of HSC-3 cells, using transwell and Matrigel assay. Validation of mRNA expression through RT-PCR. Molecular docking was implemented to validate the binding association of calotropin with apoptosis and metastatic regulating targets. Result: The