Cytotoxic effect through Fas/APO-1 expression due to vitamin K in human glioma cells

Congeners of vitamin K have been found to inhibit growth in various rodent and human tumor cells, but the mechanisms of the inhibitory action are still not well understood. To investigate the modes of actions of vitamin K, we used several vitamin K analogs and examined their cytotoxic effect for human glioma cell lines RBR17T and U251. The analogs included vitamin K1 (VK1), vitamin K2 (VK2), vitamin K3 (VK3), and geranylgeraniol (GGO) which form an unsaturated side chain of VK2. Cell viability was estimated by MTT assay. DNA fragmentation was demonstrated by gel electrophoresis and flow cytometry. In order to study the mechanism of apoptosis, we measured the changes of intracellular reactive oxygen intermediates (ROI) and Fas/APO-1 expression by flow cytometry. The results showed: (1) VK2, VK3, and GGO inhibited cell growth; (2) VK3 had a more potent cytotoxic effect than VK2, and VK3 enhanced the cytotoxic effect of antitumor agents (ACNU and IFN-beta) in RBR17T cells; (3) VK2, VK3, and GGO induce apoptosis: (4) VK3 increased the expression of Fas/APO-1 although VK2 and GGO did not increase its expression in glioma cells; (5) VK3 increased the production of intracellular ROI. Catalase and reduced glutathione (GSH) inhibited production of intracellular ROI and antagonized inhibition of cell-growth induced by VK3, but failed to antagonize that of VK2 and GGO. We hypothesize that VK3 induces apoptosis by promoting the generation of intracellular ROI and Fas/APO-1 expression. On the other hand, VK2 and GGO induce apoptosis but most likely by some other unknown pathway.