Abstract: This study was designed to assay whether the carotenoids-lutein and zeaxanthin extracts from corn gluten meal could induce the oral cavity cancer KB cell apoptosis and illustrate the possible molecular or biology mechanism. This paper adopted single-cell gel electrophoresis (SCGE),DNA electrophoresis and flow cytometric (FCM) technique to observe the apoptosis of the cell line KB under the influence of lutein and zeaxanthin. After cells were treated with the medium containing 40 and 60μmol/L lutein or 30 and 40μmol/L zeaxanthin for 48 and 72h respectively, many cardinal apoptosis features were observed: single cell gel electrophoresis (SCGE) and DNA electrophoresis assay displayed that lutein and zeaxanthin could induce the breakage of DNA strand of KB cell; While cell cycle analysised by FCM revealed selectively the block cell cycle progression from G1 phase to S phase; and in comparison with the blank group, the expression of bcl-2 gene was low, while that of the p53 and bax genes was high. This paper suggested that the carotenoids-lutein and zeaxanthin existed corn gluten meal has the potential function of induce KB cells apoptosis.

Key words: lutein, zeaxanthin, anti-tumor, molecular biology