Homo sapiens Raw sequence reads. Homo sapiens

Sargassum fusiforme (S. fusiforme) is used as an ingredient in Chinese herbal medicine for thousands of years. However, a limited number of studies have investigated the mechanism by which S. fusiforme exhibits its therapeutic effects. The present research evaluates the antitumor potential of the S. fusiforme polysaccharide (i.e., SFPS III) in human erythroleukemia (HEL) cells in vitro. To explore the mechanism by which SFPS III induces apoptosis in HEL cells, transcriptome analysis was performed on HEL cells which were incubated with SFPS III. In this study, we analyzed the inhibitory effect of SFPS III on HEL cell growth. It was found that SFPS III inhibited cell proliferation, reduced cell viability in a concentration-dependent manner, and induced an insignificant toxic effect in normal human embryonic lung (MRC-5) cells. Compared to the control group, transcriptome analysis indicated that a total of 438 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were identified, including 243 upregulated genes and 355 downregulated genes. Gene Ontology (GO) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) enrichment analyses were performed on all DEGs, and 900 GO terms and 52 pathways were found to be significantly enriched. Finally, 23 DEGs were randomly selected and confirmed by quantitative Real-Time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR). Our results provide a framework for understanding the effect of SFPS III on cancer cells and can serve as a resource for delineating the antitumor mechanisms of S. fusiforme.