Abstract
Purpose: :
Retinoblastoma (RB) is the most common intraocular malignant tumor of childhood. It is believed RB is derived from retina primordial cells, and the differentiation status is related to the pathological findings. Cotylenin A has a novel fucicoccan-diterpene glycoside with a complexsugar moiet, and to accelerate the differentiation of several types of undifferentiated cells, including some myeloid cell lines. This agent is one of the new type anti-cancer therapeutic agents to accelerate cell differentiation. In this report, we investigated effects of cotylenin A on the differentiation of RB cell line.
Methods: :
RB cell line, WERI-Rb-1 (WERI cells) were used. WERI cells were cultured in growth medium, and exposed to Cotylenin A (10ug/ml). The morphological changes and cell viability were observed. The expression pattern at mRNA level of retinal development marker and transcriptional factors (Nrl, Chx10, Rx, PAX6, rhodopsin, IRBP) were investigated using RT-PCR.
Results: :
The floating round cell attached the Petri-dish. Among the investigated genes, the expression of PAX6 and rhodopsin genes was induced in WERI cells by Cotylenin A, treatment for 3days. The number of the viable cells decreased significantly.
Conclusions: :
Cotylenin A was suggested to accelerate to differentiation of retinoblastoma cells.
Keywords: retinoblastoma • differentiation • gene/expression