Evaluation of statins induced cell death in MDA-MB-231 triple negative breast cancer cell line

Breast cancer is the most common malignancy among Iranian females and more than 36% of the tumors occur in women under 40 years old which are frequently triple negative. In comparison with other types of breast cancer, patients with triple negative tumors have poor prognosis with less response to current therapies. In this study the cytotoxicity of statins were investigated in triple negative MDAMB- 231 cell line. Hence, MDA-MB-231 cells treated with 0.1 ،1 ،5 ،10 ،25،50 ،100 μmol of Simvastatin, Lovastatin and Atorvastatin, separately. Cell death induction was assessed using MTT assay after 24 h. EC50 values were estimated using Prism software. All tested statins were able to induce cell death in MDA-MB-231 cells but with different EC50. Hence, the highest cell death induction was observed in the cells treated with Lovastatin, but a higher concentration of Atorvastatin is needed to induce the same amount of cell death. There is an expanding numbers of evidence supporting the ability of hydrophobic statins to inhibit the growth of breast cancer cells. It could be concluded that statins provoke cell death in triple negative MDA-MB231 cells and might be a new candidates for in vivo study of breast cancer treatment.

Keywords:

Breast cancer , triple negative breast cancer , cytotoxicity , statins