Investigation the effects of Irisin on proliferation, invasion and apoptosis of ovarian cancer cells

Background: Irisin is one of the recently known novel myokines. The myokines are a family of hormones secreted by muscles. They participate in several physiological and pathological processes, for example, lipid metabolism and cancer progression. Currently, Irisin was proved to improve the quality of skeleton and its serum concentration in cancer patients was lower than healthy participants. Because of Irisin’s potent metabolic effects on several tissue types, it is conceivable that Irisin may possess the ability to alter malignant features similar to other myokines. No previous studies have evaluated whether Irisin may regulate cell proliferation and malignant potential of ovarian cancer cell lines.Objective: The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of Irisin on ovarian cancer cells behavior.Materials and Methods: To determine whether Irisin has a protective effect against ovarian cancer, we cultured SKOV3 and OVCAR3 ovarian cancer cells and treated them with Irisin at different concentrations. We detected the proliferation by MTT and colony formation assays. Furthermore, we assessed the migration and invasion of the cells by Trans-well assay. The expression levels of MMP2 and MMP9 as metastasis markers and a panel of genes related to Warburg effect were detected by real-time analysis. Meanwhile, flow cytometery was used to investigate the effect of irsin on apoptosis induction in ovarian cancer cells.Results: We demonstrated that Irisin inhibited the proliferation and colony formation ability of ovarian cancer cells. Tran-swell assay revealed that Irisin also inhibited the migration and invasion of ovarian cancer cells. Additionally, we found that Irisin reduced apoptosis induction in ovarian cancer cell lines. Our data also suggested that the expression level of metastasis markers (MMP2 and MMP9) and some of the surveyed genes related to Warburg effect decreased after Irisin treatment.Conclusion: Exercise has been well-documented to reduce cancer risk and improved prognosis of cancer patients. Our findings provide possible insights into potential mechanisms underlying these observations. Moreover, our data supports the hypothesis that Irisin may play a key role in future cancer therapeutics. However further in vitro and in vivo investigations are needed to support these data before using in clinics.

Keywords:

Ovarian cancer , Irisin , Proliferation , Invasion , apoptosis