Lung cancer is still difficult to treat by current chemotherapeutic procedures. We recently found that MVL, an anti-HIV lectin from blue-green algae Microcystis viridis, also has antitumor activity. The objective of this study was to investigate apoptosis-inducing activity of recombinant MVL (R-MVL) and proteomic changes in A549 cells, and to identify the molecular pathways responsible for the anti-cancer action of R-MVL. We found that R-MVL induces A549 cells apoptosis in a dose-dependent manner by using MTT assay, fluorescent microscope (FM) and flow cytometry (FCM), and the IC50 was calculated to be 24.12 μg/ml. Subsequently, 7 altered proteins in R-MVL-treated A549 cells were identified, including upregulated aldehyde dehydrogenase 1 and β-actin, and five downregulated proteins: heat shock protein 90, heat shock 60, plastin 3, tropomyosin 3, and β-tubulin. Further bioinformatics analysis predicted the potential pathways for R-MVL to induce apoptosis of A549 cells. In conclusion, this is the first report to investigate anti-cancer activity of R-MVL and its mechanism of action by proteomics analysis. Our observations provide potential therapeutic targets for lung cancer inhibitor intervention and implicated the development of novel anti-cancer therapeutic strategies.
