Cancer metastasis is a vital trait in malignancies with complicated early diagnosis and therapeutic management. Therefore, the development of new remedies and the utilization of natural medicines that target metastasis are of great interest and have been studied extensively. Chinese medicinal herbs have various anti-carcinogenesis properties; however, the in vitro effect and mechanism of Viola yedoensis on cancer cell metastasis remains poorly understood. V. yedoensis extracts (VYE) can suppress the invasion of a highly metastatic human lung cancer cell line, A549 cells. According to gelatin zymography and casein zymography assays, VYE inhibited the activities of matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs) and urokinase-type plasminogen activator (u-PA). The results of reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction and Western blotting revealed that VYE can alter the expression of proteinase inhibitor. VYE also suppressed the DNA binding activity of nuclear factor-kappa B. We concluded that VYE may inhibit tumor invasion by suppressing the activities of MMP and u-PA in lung cancer cells.

Metastasis is the most prevalent cause of treatment failure in patients with colon cancer.