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Abstract
The objective of this study was to investigate the anti-tumor activity of a lectin from Sophora flavescens and explore its potential apoptotic induction mechanism. Here, an elegant series of biochemical and cell biology methods were carried out in a sequential procedure (e.g., MTT, cell morphologic changes and LDH assays, DNA ladder as well as flow cytometric assay). As a result, we found that this lectin shows a strong cytotoxicity against HeLa cells and induces apoptosis in a time- and dose-dependent manner. Subsequently, according to caspase inhibition and Western blot analysis, we further demonstrated that it is a typical caspase-dependent apoptotic mechanism. Furthermore, we also exerted some bioinformatics methods to identify the mannose-binding specificity of this lectin. In...
