Effection of cordycepin on Inhibition proliferation by activating autophagy in HepG2 cell

Cordycepin, the main active component of Cordyceps militaris, possesses a variety of biological activities. This paper investigated the inhibition of cordycepin on liver tumors. HepG2 cells were treated with cordycepin. The inhibition rates of cell proliferation was detected by MTT, LC3 protein was detected by immunofluorescence method, autophagy was observed by transmission electron microscopy, autophagy related protein was detected by Western blot. The results showed that cordycepin significantly inhibited the proliferation of HepG2 cells, and significantly increased the expression level of LC3 protein (<0.05). and the autophagy increased in the cells. The Atg-related protein analysis showed that cordycepin significantly reduced the p-mTOR / β-actin ratio and p62 / β-actin ratio (<0.01), and significantly increased the LC3II/LC3I ratio (P<0.01). The results suggested that cordycepin inhibited the proliferation by activating autophagy in HepG2 cells.