Background: Bone metastasis was one of the common complications in advanced cancer. There was about 80% advanced cancer patients with bone metastasis, nearly 40%~58% of bone metastasis patients suffered once skeletal related events (SRE) at least, and the quality of life and even the overall survival were influced by SRE seriously. Chinese medicine could significantly reduce SRE, improve the quality of life and even prolong the survival. Yishengukang decoction(YSGK) could relieve bone metastasis patients’ bone cancer pain and improve the quality of life. And the researches showed YSGK had the inhibitory effect on osteoblasts in vitro. And whether the YSGK could inhibit bone metastasis and the mechanism were unclear.
Methods: In this study, we investigated the effect of Yishegukang decoction (YSGK) on inducing osteoclasts by CCK-8 and TRAP staining in vitro, used Micro CT to observe the bone lesions by establishing the tibial bone metastasis animal model, and studied the mechanism of YSGK extractive on inhibiting bone metastasis by western blot analysis, ELISA assay and RT-PCR.
Results: YSGK extractive could inhibit osteoclast maturation and the IC50 was 10.71mg/ml in vitro. The research indicated that high does and low does of YSGK extractive reduced bone lesions, improved the BV/TV and the BMD, but only high does of YSGK extractive could inhibit osteoclasts maturation in vivo. And the further research showed that high does of YSGK could inhibit activity of CaN/NFAT pathway by inhibiting on mRNA level of NFAT.
Conclusions: Our data showed that high does of YSGK extractive could target osteoclasts to inhibit bone metastasis by suppressing CaN/NFAT pathway. These results indicated that Chinese medicine played important roles in bone metastasis and exploring YSGK potential role and the effect on tumor cells were our work in future.