Matrine Inhibits Hepatocellular Carcinoma Cell Proliferation, Migration, and Invasion by Regulating BCL9 Expression

Matrine（MAT） can affect the biological behavior of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC） cells by regulating the expression of BCL9. HCC cells were stimulated with different doses of MAT（1000, 300, 100, 30, 10, 3, 1, 0.3, and 0.1 μM） to obtain the half-maximal inhibitory concentration (IC50) value of MAT. Subsequently, the IC50 value of MAT was used to stimulate HCC cells and HCC cells transferred with the BCL9-expressing plasmid. The biological behavior of HCC cells was detected by CCK-8 assay, colony formation assay, and Transwell assay. Meanwhile, the expression levels of BCL9, Wnt1, and β-catenin were determined by Western blot. The experimental results showed that the activity of HCC cells decreased after MAT treatment, and the measured IC50 value was approximately 40μM. Through bioinformatics analysis, the potential target gene BCL9 of MAT in HCC was identified. In the The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database, it was found that BCL9 was upregulated in HCC and was associated with poor prognosis. In addition, MAT treatment could inhibit the proliferation, invasion, and metastasis of HCC cells and reduce the expression of BCL9; transfection of BCL9 could reverse the effects of MAT on the behavior of HCC cells. therefore, MAT inhibits the proliferation, invasion, and metastasis of HCC cells by regulating the expression of BCL9.