Molecular dynamics and experimental verification studies of the mechanism of dihydroartemisinin in the treatment of colorectal cancer

SW480 cells were used to study the mechanism of dihydroartemisinin in the treatment of colorectal cancer. The cells in the experimental group were treated with 20 µg/ml dihydroartemisinin, and the control group was treated with culture medium containing 0.1% DMSO. The experimental group and the control group were divided into 3 groups of samples to examine the RNA transcriptome. Overall design: The SW480 cells were cultured until logarithmic growth phase. Then DHA was added to a final concentration of 20 µg/ml (treatment group) and 0.1% DMSO (solvent control group) , and 3 replicate wells were set up for each group. Cells were continued to be cultured for 4h and then the culture was terminated and the supernatant was discarded. Total RNA was extracted from fresh tissues using the TRIzol reagent (Invitrogen Beijing Office, Beijing, China) based on the manufacturer's instructions. The extracted total RNA was verified by purity, concentration, and integrity; then, the library was prepared. After RNAseq and reads filtering, clean reads were mapped to the reference genome and calculated the gene expression level for each sample. The differential expression genes (DEGs) between treatment groups and control groups were calculated using the DESeq2. All analyses were performed with the R 4.0.3 framework.