Selenium nanoparticles decorated by fucoidan induce ferroptosis in HepG2 cells

Yanzhe Chen; Xiaofei Liu; Bowen Chen; Feifei Zhu; Zhuo Wang; Kit-Leong Cheong; Shengquan Ye; Saiyi Zhong; Jianping Chen

doi:10.1016/j.ijbiomac.2024.138841

Selenium nanoparticles decorated by fucoidan induce ferroptosis in HepG2 cells

Int J Biol Macromol. 2024 Dec 17:289:138841. doi: 10.1016/j.ijbiomac.2024.138841. Online ahead of print.

Authors

Yanzhe Chen¹, Xiaofei Liu¹, Bowen Chen¹, Feifei Zhu¹, Zhuo Wang¹, Kit-Leong Cheong¹, Shengquan Ye¹, Saiyi Zhong², Jianping Chen³

Affiliations

¹ College of Food Science and Technology, Guangdong Ocean University, Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Aquatic Product Processing and Safety, Guangdong Provincial Engineering Technology Research Center of Seafood, Guangdong Province Engineering Laboratory for Marine Biological Products, Key Laboratory of Advanced Processing of Aquatic Product of Guangdong Higher Education Institution, Zhanjiang 524088, China.
² College of Food Science and Technology, Guangdong Ocean University, Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Aquatic Product Processing and Safety, Guangdong Provincial Engineering Technology Research Center of Seafood, Guangdong Province Engineering Laboratory for Marine Biological Products, Key Laboratory of Advanced Processing of Aquatic Product of Guangdong Higher Education Institution, Zhanjiang 524088, China; Collaborative Innovation Center of Seafood Deep Processing, Dalian Polytechnic University, Dalian 116034, China.
³ College of Food Science and Technology, Guangdong Ocean University, Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Aquatic Product Processing and Safety, Guangdong Provincial Engineering Technology Research Center of Seafood, Guangdong Province Engineering Laboratory for Marine Biological Products, Key Laboratory of Advanced Processing of Aquatic Product of Guangdong Higher Education Institution, Zhanjiang 524088, China; Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Intelligent Food Manufacturing, Foshan University, Foshan 528000, China. Electronic address: cjp516555989@126.com.

PMID: 39701247
DOI: 10.1016/j.ijbiomac.2024.138841

Abstract

Unlike apoptosis, necrosis and autophagy, ferroptosis is a novel type of regulated cell death, and the mechanism by which selenium nanoparticles induce ferroptosis in cancer cells has rarely been investigated. To investigate the mechanism of inhibition of HepG2 cell proliferation by fucoidan-selenium nanoparticles (FD-SeNPs) by inducing ferroptosis. The mechanism was explored by detecting ROS, MDA, GSH and Fe²⁺ and utilizing TEM and Western blot assay. The results showed that FD-SeNPs increased intracellular ROS, MDA and Fe²⁺ levels and decreased GSH levels. Moreover, HepG2 cells treated with FD-SeNPs showed mitochondrial shrinkage, volume reduction and mitochondrial cristae breakage. The ability to reverse the changes in the above indexes after Ferrostatin-1 (Fer-1) intervention suggests that FD-SeNPs inhibit HepG2 cell proliferation by inducing cells to undergo ferroptosis. Further mechanistic studies revealed that FD-SeNPs decreased the expression of Nrf2, HO-1, SLC7A11 (xCT), GCLC and GPX4 proteins to promote lipid peroxidation in HepG2 cells. Moreover, FD-SeNPs could disrupt intracellular iron homeostasis by up-regulating transferrin protein and down-regulating SLC40A1 and Ferritin proteins, suggesting that FD-SeNPs induced cells to undergo ferroptosis by regulating proteins related to lipid peroxidation and iron homeostasis. This study provides theoretical data for reference in applying FD-SeNPs in developing anti-cancer clinical drugs.