In breast cancer cells, overexpression of human epidermal growth factor receptor 
2 (HER2) increases the translation of fatty acid synthase (FASN) by altering the 
activity of PI3K/Akt signaling pathways. Cancer chemotherapy causes major side 
effects and is not effective enough in slowing down the progression of the 
disease. Earlier studies showed a role for resveratrol in the inhibition of 
FASN, but the molecular mechanisms of resveratrol-induced inhibition are not 
known. In the present study, we examined the novel mechanism of resveratrol on 
Her2-overexpressed breast cancer cells. The effect of resveratrol on the growth 
of breast cancer cells was assessed as percent cell viability by 
cytotoxicity-based MTT assay and the induction of apoptosis was determined by 
cell-death detection ELISA and flow cytometric analysis of Annexin-V-PI binding. 
Western immunobloting was used to detect signaling events in human breast cancer 
(SKBR-3) cells. Data showed that resveratrol-mediated down-regulation of FASN 
and HER2 genes synergistically induced apoptotic death in SKBR-3 cells. This 
concurrently caused a prominent up-regulation of PEA3, leads to down-regulation 
of HER2 genes. Resveratrol also alleviated the PI3K/Akt/mTOR signaling by 
down-regulation of Akt phosphorylation and up-regulation of PTEN expression. 
These findings suggest that resveratrol alters the cell cycle progression and 
induce cell death via FASN inhibition in HER2 positive breast cancer.