Kinetin riboside preferentially induces apoptosis by modulating Bcl-2 family proteins and caspase-3 in cancer cells

Abstract

Here, we demonstrate that kinetin riboside (KR), a cytokinin analog, induces apoptosis in HeLa and mouse melanoma B16F-10 cells. KR disrupted the mitochondrial membrane potential and induced the release of cytochrome c and activation of caspase-3. Bad were upregulated while Bcl-2 was down-regulated under KR exposure. A tumor growth in mice was dramatically suppressed by KR. In contrast, human skin fibroblast CCL-116 and bovine primary fibroblast cells show resistances to KR and no significant changes in Bad, Bcl-X-L, and cleaved PARP were observed. Our data suggest that KR selectively induces apoptosis in cancer cells through the classical mitochondria dependent apoptosis pathway. (C) 2007 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.