CASP3 and colonic neoplasm: Duan et al. found that the percentage of colon cancer cells suppressed with a combination of matrine and irinotecan (CPT-11), a first-line drug for colon cancer, was higher than that with either matrine or irinotecan alone, which might be associated with up-regulation of Topoisomerase (TOPO) I, Bax and Caspase-3 (Duan et al., 2017).