The objective of the current study was to explore the effect of Coriolus versicolor polysaccharides (CVP) on proliferation, apoptosis and its apoptosis pathway in cervical cancer HeLa cells. After HeLa cells was cultured. Cell viabilities were determined by the MTT method; the cell apoptosis rate was counted by by flowcytometer; The changes in expression level of P53, Bcl-2 and Fas gene before/after the cell treatment were detected by qRT-PCR. The proliferation of Hela cells was obviously inhibited by CVP in a does/time-dependent manner. When CVP treated cervical cancer HeLa cells for 24 h, 48 h and 72 h, the rates of CVP inhibition of cell growth was 92%, 95% and 98%, respectively. When CVP concentration reached to 1.25 mg/L, the effects on inhibition of HeLa cell growth were not significant difference with the increasing CVP concentration. While IC50 value of HeLa cell treated with CVP for 24, 48 and 72 h was 0.2507±0.01 mg/L, 0.2720±0.04 mg/L and 0.2736±0.03 mg/L, respectively. HeLa cells that were treated with CVP in 0.5 mg/L for 24 h, 26.36% of the cells had apoptosis, while for 48 h, 63.81% of the cells had apoptosis. After HeLa cells were treated with CVP for 24 h, the results of qRT-PCR analyses showed that the expression of Bcl-2 gene in the treated HeLa cells was down-regulated significantly. CVP could promote apoptosis of HeLa cells, and the mechanism may be associated with the down-regulation of Bcl-2 expression. HeLa cell apoptosis is supposed via Bcl-2 -mediated apoptotic pathway.
