Marine bromophenol bis(2,3,6-tribromo-4, 5-dihydroxybenzyl)ether inhibits angiogenesis in human umbilical vein endothelial cells and reduces vasculogenic mimicry in human lung cancer a549 cells

Abstract

Angiogenesis, including the growth of new capillary blood vessels from existing ones and the malignant tumors cells formed vasculogenic mimicry, is quite important for the tumor metastasis. Anti-angiogenesis is one of the significant therapies in tumor treatment, while the clinical angiogenesis inhibitors usually exhibit endothelial cells dysfunction and drug resistance. Bis(2,3,6tribromo-4,5-dihydroxybenzyl)ether (BTDE), a marine algae-derived bromophenol compound, has shown various biological activities, however, its anti-angiogenesis function remains unknown. The present study illustrated that BTDE had anti-angiogenesis effect in vitro through inhibiting human umbilical vein endothelial cells migration, invasion, tube formation, and the activity of matrix metalloproteinases 9 (MMP9), and in vivo BTDE also blocked intersegmental vessel formation in zebrafish embryos. Moreover, BTDE inhibited the migration, invasion, and vasculogenic mimicry formation of lung cancer cell A549. All these results indicated that BTDE could be used as a potential candidate in anti-angiogenesis for the treatment of cancer. © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.