Imperatorin induces autophagy and G0/G1 phase arrest via PTEN-PI3K-AKT-mTOR/p21 signaling pathway in human osteosarcoma cells in vitro and in vivo

Osteosarcoma is the third most common cancer in adolescence and the first common primary malignant tumor of bone. The long-term prognosis of osteosarcoma, especially for unresectable and metastatic tumors, still remains unsatisfactory in the past decades. In this study, we systematically investigated the antitumor effect of imperatorin (IMP), a small molecule extracted from Angelica dahurica, in human osteosarcoma cells. The results showed that IMP triggered time-dependent and dose-dependent inhibition of tumor growth mainly by inducing autophagy promotion and G0/G1 phase arrest in vitro and in vivo. Besides, IMP treatment elevated the expression level of PTEN and p21, down-regulated the phosphorylation of AKT and mTOR. In contrast, the inhibition of PTEN using Bpv (HOpic), a potential and selective inhibitor of PTEN, concurrently rescued IMP-induced autophagy promotion, cell cycle arrest and inactivation of PTEN-PI3K-AKT-mTOR/p21 pathway. Taken together, our data revealed that imperatorin induced autophagy and cell cycle arrest through PTEN-PI3K-AKT-mTOR/p21 signaling pathway by targeting and up-regulating PTEN in human osteosarcoma cells. Hence, imperatorin is a desirable candidate for clinical treatments of osteosarcoma. RNA sequence assay data of 143B cells treated with or without 125 μM imperatorin for 24 h, each group contains three repeats