Proteomic Approach Reveals the Activation of Apoptosis by Padina gymnospora in Oral Cancer Cell Line

Aim/Background: Cancer is still known to be a devastating disease condition. Even after getting advancements in multimodality therapies, the success rate with respect to patient survival is very limited. Hence there is an emerging need to find alternative medication strategies for cancer treatment. Recently seaweeds are getting their significance due to its tremendous medicinal properties. Among different category of seaweeds, Padina gymnospora which is a brown seaweed is known to possess many important bioactivities including antimicrobial activity, anti-oxidative property and anti-inflammatory. Role of this seaweed in treating oral cancer cells is not much explored in detail. Hence, this study aims to understand the significance of Padina gymnospora in oral cancer cell line – SAS. Materials and Methods: The ethanol extract of Padina was treated to oral cancer cell line – SAS and incubated for 24 hr. After incubation, MTT assay was performed to find the efficiency of the extract. Further the cells were taken for protein extraction and subjected to SDS PAGE, two-dimensional electrophoresis (2D) coupled with tandem mass spectrometry approach. The differentially expressed proteins were further identified and subjected to bioinformatic analysis. Results and Conclusion: It was observed that pro apoptotic proteins including BIK, BAK1, BID, BAD and CASP8 were highly upregulated in the Padina treated samples compared with untreated control samples. This data clearly demonstrates that Padina gymnospora induces the apoptosis in the oral cancer cells. This study paves us the way to explore more about the therapeutic potential of Padina gymnospora in treating the oral cancer cells.