Antrodia Cinnamomea is a fungus species widely used as a herb medicine for hypertension, cancer and handover. Nevertheless, the biological roles of Antrodia Cinnamomea on the molecular mechanism of liver cancer are not entirely understood. To determine whether Antrodia Cinnamomea is able to be used for the treatment of liver cancer and its molecular mechanism, we examined the effect of Antrodia Cinnamomea on the differential proteomic patterns in liver cancer cell lines HepG2 and C3A as well as in Chang’s liver cell, a normal liver cell, using quantitative proteomic approach. The proteomic analysis demonstrated that abundance of 82, 125 and 125 proteins was significantly altered in Chang’s liver cells, C3A and HepG2, respectively. The experimental outcomes also demonstrated that Antrodia Cinnamomea-induced cytotoxicity in liver cancer cells mostly involved dysregulation of protein folding, cytoskeleton regulation, redox-regulation, glycolysis pathway as well as transcription regulation. Further analysis also revealed that Antrodia Cinnamomea promoted misfolding of intracellular proteins and dysregulate of cellular redox-balance resulting in ER-stress. To sum up our studies demonstrated that the proteomic strategy used in this study offered a tool to investigate the molecular mechanisms of Antrodia Cinnamomea-induced liver cancer cytotoxicity. The proteomic results might be further evaluated as prospective targets in liver cancer treatment.

牛樟芝是一种真菌，广泛用作高血压，癌症和移交的草药。然而，牛樟芝在肝癌分子机制中的生物学作用尚不完全清楚。为了确定牛樟芝是否能够用于治疗肝癌及其分子机制，我们研究了牛樟芝的作用定量蛋白质组学方法研究肝癌细胞HepG2和C3A以及正常肝细胞Chang's肝细胞中的差异蛋白质组学模式。蛋白质组学分析表明，Chang的肝细胞C3A和HepG2中82、125和125蛋白的丰度发生了显着变化。实验结果还表明，牛樟芝引起的肝癌细胞毒性主要涉及蛋白质折叠失调，细胞骨架调控，氧化还原调控，糖酵解途径以及转录调控。进一步分析还发现牛樟芝促进细胞内蛋白质的错误折叠和细胞氧化还原平衡失调，导致内质网应激。总结我们的研究表明，本研究中使用的蛋白质组学策略为研究牛樟芝引起的肝癌细胞毒性的分子机制提供了一种工具。蛋白质组学结果可能会进一步评估为肝癌治疗的预期目标。