plCSA-BNPs promote cancer cell death by regulating the BCL2/BAX, cleaved caspase-3 and MMP pathways. Western blotting demonstrated that cancer cells treated with the plCSA-BNPs exhibited significant downregulation of BCL2, MMP2 and MMP 9 levels and upregulation of BAX and cleaved caspase-3 levels. (A) Representative immunoblots of BCL2, BAX, cleaved caspase-3, MMP-2 and MMP-9. GAPDH was used as the internal control. (B) Densitometry results of BCL2, BAX and cleaved caspase-3 as analyzed using ImageJ software. (C) Densitometry of MMP-2 and MMP-9 results as analyzed using ImageJ software. One-way ANOVA was used to analyze the significance of the differences among groups, followed by Tukey's post hoc test. Values are expressed as means ± standard deviation. *P<0.05, **P<0.01, ***P<0.001, ****P<0.0001. The experiments were repeated three times. BRU, brusatol; plCSA, placental chondroitin sulfate A; BNPs, BRU-loaded nanoparticles; NC, negative control; BCL2, B-cell lymphoma 2; BAX, BCL2-associated X protein; MMP, matrix metallopeptidase.