Ginsenoside Rh2 promotes cell apoptosis in T-cell acute lymphocytic leukaemia by MAPK and PI3K/AKT signalling pathways

T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (T-ALL) is a common childhood malignant tumour, which has poor prognosis and high recurrence rate. Ginsenoside Rh2 (GRh2), a bioactive ingredient of <i>Panax ginseng</i> has significant anti-tumour effect. In this study, we found that gene expressions of Jurkat cells were significantly changed in the mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) and phosphatidylinositol 3 kinase (PI3K)/protein kinase B (AKT) signalling pathways after 35 µm GRh2 treatment, involving in JUN, PIEN, AKT3 and MAPK8IP2. Target proteins including PI3K, AKT, ASK, caspase 8 and caspase 9 were bind tightly with GRh2 by molecular docking. Moreover, the protein expression ratios of p-PI3K/PI3K and p-AKT/AKT were significantly reduced, and the expression ratios of p-ASK1/ASK1, p-JNK/JNK and p-c-JUN/c-JUN, Bax/Bcl-2, and the levels of cleaved caspase 8, 9, 3 were increased significantly in GRh2-treated Jurkat cells. The results imply that GRh2 induced T-ALL apoptosis by activating the MAPK pathway and inhibiting the PI3K-AKT pathway.