Fig. 1

WZ35 inhibits breast cancer cells proliferation, migration, invasion and induced apoptotic cell death and cell cycle arrest. a The effects of WZ35 and curcumin on the proliferation of breast cancer cells. b Induction of cycle arrest in MDA-MB-231 cells was detected by Flow cytometry after treatment with curcumin (10 μg/mL) and WZ35 (10 μg/mL) for 24 h. WZ53 increased the proportion of cells in the G2/M phase. c Expression of cell cycle relative proteins Cyclin B1, and p21 were determined by western blot after treatment with WZ35 (10 μg/mL) or curcumin (10 μg/mL) for 24 h. GAPDH was used as internal control. d Induction of apoptosis in MDA-MB-231 cells was determined by flow cytometry after treatment with WZ35 (10 μg/mL) and curcumin (10 μg/mL) for 24 h. Similar results were obtained in three independent experiments. e, h Transwell assay was performed to evaluate the effects of WZ35 and curcumin on Hs578T (e, f) and MDA-MB-231 (g, h) cells migration and invasion. Cell migration and invasion images were presented and migrated cells were quantified. i EMT biomakers N-cadherin, E-cadherin, MMP-2 and MMP-9 were determined by western blot. Data are presented as mean ± SD, *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001