Demethylzeylasteral Suppresses Tumorigenicity liver cancer stem cells by regulating metabolism pathway

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the most common cancers worldwide for its high mortality among all malignancies. There is an urgent to explore the underlying mechanisms of each HCC stage including tumorigenesis, progression, recurrence and drug resistance.Demethylzeylasteral (DML) is a triterpene compound extracted from TwHF which have been demonstrated to possess various pharmacological activities by accumulated investigations. Initial studies confirmed that DML have immunosuppressive and anti-inflammatory effects which can be used in animal transplantation models However, the effect of DML on HCC cell has remained unclear.In our study, we aimed to evaluate the anti-tumor activity of DML in LCSCs and to identify the possible signaling pathway involved in this process. Our work is the first to reveal that DML inhibits HCC growth by suppressing the LCSCs proliferation, migration and promoting the LCSCs apoptosis. Our study suggests that DML might be a potential candidate for the treatment of HCC.