Echinacoside inhibits breast cancer cells by suppressing the Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathway

Echinacoside, a small molecule derived from the natural herbs Cistanche and Echinacea, shows effective anticancer abilities, but the mechanism remains unclear. By using colony formation, scratch, and transwell assays in MDA-MB-231 breast cancer cells, we confirmed the anti-breast cancer ability of Echinacoside in vitro. In addition, we found that Echinacoside can dose-dependently reduce phosho-LRP6, total LRP6, phosho-Dvl2, active β-catenin, and total β-catenin protein expression level in MDA-MB-231 and MDA-MB-468 cells by western blot. We also detected well-known Wnt targets genes, including LEF1, CD44, and cyclin D1 by real-time PCR and western blot, and Echinacoside significantly shows inhibition effect in these two breast cancer cell lines. Furthermore, we investigated its anti-breast cancer ability in an MDA-MB-231 xenograft model in vivo. Echinacoside treatment significantly reduced tumor growth, which was accompanied by a reduction in Wnt/β-catenin signaling. In summary, our results demonstrate that Echinacoside can effectively inhibit Wnt/β-catenin signaling, and therefore, it may be a promising therapeutic target to treat breast cancer.