Gecko Crude Peptides Induce Apoptosis in Human Liver Carcinoma Cells<i>In Vitro</i>and Exert Antitumor Activity in a Mouse Ascites H22 Xenograft Model

Abstract

GCPs significantly inhibited the growth of HepG2 cells and induced typical apoptotic morphological features through increasing bcl-2/bax ratio in a dose- and time-dependent manner in vitro. The tumor weights of the ADR group, GCPs (H) group, GCPs (M) group, GCPs (L) group were smaller compared to the NS group. While the white blood cell count, thymus index, spleen index were higher in the high dose GCPs group than the NS group (P < 0.05), the VEGF expression in tumor tissue and serum TNF-α and IL-6 levels in the GCPs groups were lower than the NS group (P < 0.05).