Resveratrol suppresses the proliferation of breast cancer cells by inhibiting fatty acid synthase signaling pathway

In breast cancer cells, overexpression of human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) increases the translation of fatty acid synthase (FASN) by altering the activity of PI3K/Akt signaling pathways. Cancer chemotherapy causes major side effects and is not effective enough in slowing down the progression of the disease. Earlier studies showed a role for resveratrol in the inhibition of FASN, but the molecular mechanisms of resveratrol-induced inhibition are not known. In the present study, we examined the novel mechanism of resveratrol on Her2-overexpressed breast cancer cells. The effect of resveratrol on the growth of breast cancer cells was assessed as percent cell viability by cytotoxicity-based MTT assay and the induction of apoptosis was determined by cell-death detection ELISA and flow cytometric analysis of Annexin-V-PI binding. Western immunobloting was used to detect signaling events in human breast cancer (SKBR-3) cells. Data showed that resveratrol-mediated down-regulation of FASN and HER2 genes synergistically induced apoptotic death in SKBR-3 cells. This concurrently caused a prominent up-regulation of PEA3, leads to down-regulation of HER2 genes. Resveratrol also alleviated the PI3K/Akt/mTOR signaling by down-regulation of Akt phosphorylation and up-regulation of PTEN expression. These findings suggest that resveratrol alters the cell cycle progression and induce cell death via FASN inhibition in HER2 positive breast cancer.