Bostrycin inhibits growth of tongue squamous cell carcinoma cells by inducing mitochondrial apoptosis

Oral cancer is one of the most common malignant tumors in head and neck, and its incidence is increasing year by year in the world (1). Among them, tongue squamous cell carcinoma is the most typical and common type of oral cancer, while 90% of oral cancer is squamous cell carcinoma, in which tongue squamous cell carcinoma is as high as 50–60% (2). There are about 10,990 new cases of tongue squamous cell carcinoma in the world every year (3). Although the medical technology has made great progress, such as surgery, chemotherapy, radiotherapy and other treatments that have been used to treat tongue squamous cell carcinoma, the prognosis of patients with tongue squamous cell carcinoma is still unsatisfactory. The 5-year survival rate of it is only about 50%, and local or regional recurrence and cervical lymph node metastasis remain a huge challenge for clinical treatment (4). Most studies have shown that tongue squamous cell carcinoma cells are highly invasive and prone to invasion and metastasis, which is related to the activation of Wnt/beta-catenin signaling pathway