Traditional Chinese medicine baicalin suppresses mESCs proliferation through inhibition of miR-294 expression.

BACKGROUND: Traditional Chinese herbal medicines (TCMs) have been widely used against a broad spectrum of biological activities, including influencing the cardiac differentiation from mouse embryonic stem cells (mESCs). However, their effects and mechanisms of action on ESCs proliferation remain to be determined. The present study aimed to determine the effect of three TCMs, baicalin, ginsenoside Rg1, and puerarin, on mESCs proliferation and to elucidate the possible mechanism of their action.

METHODS: Cell proliferation was examined with a cell proliferation assay Cell Counting Kit-8 (CCK-8), propidium iodide (PI) staining was used to visualize cell cycle. The mRNA expression level of c-myc, c-fos, c-jun, GAPDH and microRNAs were measured by quantitative real time RT-PCR.

RESULTS: We found that baicalin 50 μM suppressed the proliferation of mESCs as observations in more cells in G1 phase and less cells in either S phase or G2/M phase. Moreover, baicalin suppressed the expressions of c-jun and c-fos in mESCs and down-regulated the expression of miR-294. Overexpression of miR-294 in mESCs significantly reversed the effects of baicalin both on mESC proliferation and c-fos/c-jun expression.

CONCLUSIONS: Baicalin down-regulation of miR-294 may be its key mechanism of action in decreasing mESCs proliferation.