Clausenidin from Clausena excavata Burm. causes Apoptosis of Liver Cancer in Mice.

BACKGROUND Clausenidin is a pyranocoumarin that was isolated from the roots of Clausena excavata Burm. Previously, the pure clausenidin crystals were successfully used to treat HepG2 cells (liver cancer) in vitro; however, no in vivo study had been conducted to support these findings. Therefore, the current study was designed to investigate the in vivo anti-liver cancer effect of pure clausenidin in hepatocellular carcinoma-induced BALB/c mice. METHOD DNA fragmentation, caspases, and histological assays were conducted to evaluate the cytotoxic effect of the pure clausenidin, while real-time qPCR was performed to monitor the expression of apoptosis-inducing genes in the clausenidin-treated mice. RESULT Clausenidin significantly (p<0.05) decreased the liver damage-induced levels of alanine and aspartate aminotransferases and also caused fragmentation of the genomic DNA of the tumors. This was followed by a significant increase (p<0.05) in the expression of caspases 3, 8 and 9 proteins in the clausenidin-treated mice. In addition, clausenidin upregulated the expression of  pro-apoptotic genes associated with the extrinsic and intrinsic pathways. However, it was observed that clausenidin may have inhibited angiogenesis by downregulating the expression of the VEGF gene in the treated mice. CONCLUSION Therefore, clausenidin can be potentially used as an anti-liver cancer agent.

• Publication year

  2026

• Venue

  Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention

• Publication date

  2026-02-01

• Fields of study

  Medicine

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.31557/APJCP.2026.27.2.481PMID 41660905
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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