Introduction: More than 90% of cancer mortality is due to metastasis of malignant cells, as local or distance migration of cells makes their eradication by surgery or conventional chemotherapy and/or radiation therapy very difficult. Regarding colorectal cancer, approximately 20% of patients have metastases at diagnosis, most often to the liver, lung or peritoneum. Auraptene, 7-geranyloxycoumarin, is a monoterpene coumarin with numerous pharmacological properties such as antibacterial, antigenotoxic and cancer preventive activities. The present study was designed to investigate effects of auraptene on migration of human colon cancer cells in vitro. Methods: After auraptene was synthesized using 7-hydroxycoumarin and transgeranyl bromide, its purification was done by column chromatography and 1H- and 13C-NMR experiments were used to confirm its structure. For wound healing migration assay, LoVo and HT-29 cells were seeded in 24 well plates and after 24 h, a straight scratch was made by a sterile pipette tip to create a gap with constant width. After washing the cells with PBS, they were treated with 20 and 40 μM auraptene and incubated at 37˚C in the presence of 5% CO2 for several days. To note, untreated cells and cells treated with 0.4% DMSO, as auraptene solvent, were considered as control. Finally, cells migrated to the gap were photographed and analyzed by Image J software. Results and conclusion: Obtained finding indicated that auraptene inhibited the migration of both cell lines in a dose dependent manner. For LoVo cells, 20 μM auraptene reduced the number of migrated cells after 48 h, while the optimum time point for 40 μM auraptene was 24 h. In case of HT-29 cells, which have lower migration ability, 20 and 40 μM auraptene inhibited cell migration upon 144 h and 72 h of incubation, respectively. Taken together, our results suggest auraptene as a potential anti-migratory agent in colon cancer cells, although its effect needs to be further investigated in vivo.

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