Nitidine chloride possesses anticancer property in lung cancer cells through activating Hippo signaling pathway

Nitidine chloride (NC) has significant anti-tumor properties; however, the precise mechanism related to NC still needs further investigation. This study intends to investigate the anti-tumor functions and the feasible molecular basis of NC in NSCLC cells. Therefore, we determined the mechanism of NC-mediated anti-tumor function through various methods. Cell proliferation ability and migration and invasion were detected by CCK-8, colony formation assay and Transwell assay, respectively. Furthermore, flow cytometry was used to detect apoptosis, cell cycle and ROS. Moreover, protein expression level was measured by western blot. Our results showed that NC can inhibit the growth, motility of NSCLC cells, induce apoptosis and arrest cell cycle. Meanwhile, NC increased the level of ROS in NSCLC cells. Moreover, western blot data showed that NC suppressed the expression of Lats1, Mob1, and YAP, and enhanced the expression of p-Lats1, p-Mob1, p-YAP1 (ser127). Overall, our research reveals that NC exerts anticancer activity by activating and modulating the Hippo signaling pathway.