Hesa-A Down-Regulates erb/b2 Oncogene Expression and Improves Outcome of Oral Carcinoma in a Rat Model.

Abstract

Oral carcinoma (OC) remains one of the most difficult malignancies to cure. Hesa-A is an Iranian herbal-marine compound that has shown promising anti-tumor properties against various human tumors. However, its mechanism of action remains to be addressed. The present study was conducted to evaluate the effect of two doses of Hesa-A on mRNA expression of erbb2 as a main prognosticator tumor marker for OC in an animal model.A total of 60 rats were randomly divided into 5 groups of 12 animals each. Rats in carcinoma groups received 0, 250 and 500 mg/kg body weight doses of Hesa-A 3 times a day. The other two groups were considered as treated and untreated control groups. At the end of the experiment, animals were sacrificed and tongue tissues subjected to H and E staining and real time PCR.Our results showed that compared to the control group, erb b2 was over-expressed ~ 30% in the carcinoma group. After treatment with 250 mg/kg and 500 mg/kg body weight of Hesa-A , erbb2 levels dropped by 24.1% and 3.4 % respectively compared to the control carcinoma group (p<0.01, p<0.0001). Moreover, there was a significant relation between erb b2 mRNA content and observed pathological changes in studied groups (p<0.05).These data provide insight into mechanism(s) by which Hesa-A may improve clinical outcome of oral carcinoma by affecting oncogene erbb2 expression and suggest Hesa-A as an effective chemotherapeutic agent in treatment of HER+ tumors.