AIM: To investigate the cytotoxic effects of the six protoberberine alkaloids(PAs) from Rhizoma Coptidis on HepG2 cells. METHOD: A systematic screening was conducted to investigate the dynamic response of HepG2 cells to the PAs using the impedance-based xCELLigence system. Cisplatin was selected as the positive control. The real time, concentration-response curves and the 50% inhibitory concentrations(IC50) were acquired to evaluate the anticancer activity of the PAs. RESULTS: All of the six PAs inhibited cell growth and induce death in HepG2 cells in a time- and concentration-dependent manner. The IC50 values of cisplatin, berberine, columbamine, coptisine, epiberberine, jatrorrhizine, and palmatine were 5.13, 42.33, 226.54, 36.90, 302.72, 383.54, and 456.96 μg·mL-1, respectively. The results obtained using the xCELLigence system corresponded well with those of the conventional methods. CONCLUSION: The xCELLigence system is a reliable and efficient tool for real-time screening of the cytotoxic effect of compounds in cell-based in vitro assays. Coptisine and berberine, with methylenedioxy group at C2 and C3 on the phenyl ring showed stronger effect.than the other four PAs. However, compared with cisplatin, the six PAs didn't show obvious cytotoxic effect on HepG2 cells.These results provided some useful data for the evaluation of the anticancer compounds, and the clinical application of traditional Chinese medicine.
The current quality control（QC） pattern for Chinese materia medica（CMM） lacks suitable methods and indicators to evaluate their safety and efficacy effectively, which impedes the smooth development of CMM. In this review, main problems of the current QC pattern for CMM, principally focused on the content determination of constituents,were summarized and the inspiration from the QC of biological products was introduced. With the aim at introducing a suitable tool to the QC of CMM, biopotency assay and its feasibility in the QC pattern for CMM were analyzed and confirmed by relevant researches with years of practice. From the applications of biopotency assays in the QC of CMM in the last 10 years, we propose that biopotency assays should be an integral part of the QC pattern for CMM, for these assays can make the QC indicators related to the clinical safety and efficacy, supplementing the existed QC system of CMM.
