Emodin inhibits colon cancer by altering BCL-2 family proteins and cell survival pathways

Emodin reduces the cell viability and induces apoptosis in human colon cancer cells. Colon epithelial cells (CCD 841 CoN) and colon cancer (CoCa) cells (DLD-1 and COLO 201) were treated with increasing concentrations of Emodin (0–80 μM) for 24 h (white bar) 48 h (grey bar) and 72 h (black bar). MTT assay was used to measure cell viability and EC50 was determined via a linear regression (a). DLD-1 and COLO 201 cells were treated with EC50 of Emodin 18 μM and 15 μM, respectively and apoptosis was assessed by staining with FITC-conjugated Annexin V and 7-AAD (b). The percentage of necrotic, late and early apoptotic and non-apoptotic cells are shown in Q1, Q2, Q3 and Q4. c Bar diagrams show percentage changes in necrotic, late and early apoptotic, and non-apoptotic cells as mean？±？SEM from three independent experiments. Asterisks (*) p？<？0.05, (**) p？<？0.01, (***) p？<？0.001, show significant change compared with the contro