The mechanism of anti-hepatocellular carcinoma cell line HepG2 by Chinese medicine Astragalus protein

To detect the inhibitory effect of Astragalus protein on the proliferation of hepatocellular carcinoma cell line HepG2, transcriptomics was used to explore the anti-tumor mechanism of Astragalus protein. The dried roots of Astragalus was precipitated by ammonium sulfate to obtain Huang Qi protein (HQP) with different molecular weights. The effect of HQP on HepG2 and its toxic effect were detected by hemocytometry. Cell necrosis was detected by flow cytometry and Hoechst/propidium iodide (PI) double staining. The necrotic marker protein receptor interacting serine/threonine kinase 1 (RIP1) was determined by Western blot. Transcriptome sequencing was performed on the control group and dosing group RNA, and differential expression genes were analyzed for RNA-seq results. qRT-PCR was used to verified the relative mRNA expression levels of candidate genes. The results showed that the inhibition of HepG2 proliferation was more obvious with the increase of HQP concentration. When the concentration of HQP was 100 μg·mL^-1, the necrosis rate increased to 18.78%, and the number of red necrotic cells stained with PI was observed under the microscope. The Western blot results showed an increase in RIP1 protein levels. The results of RNA-seq analysis showed that 26 000 related genes were regulated by HQP, and 979 genes were more regulated. KEGG analysis found that some differentially expressed genes were associated with p53 signaling pathway, and qRT-PCR further verified that the sequencing results were reliable. HQP may cause programmed necrosis of HepG2 cells and may be involved in the p53 signaling pathway.