Vahid Lesan - Department of Biology, Faculty of Food Industry and Agriculture, Standard Research Institute (SRI), Karaj, Iran

Background and aim: Arsenic trioxide is a chemotherapy drug used to treat acute promyelocytic leukaemia (APL) and its antineoplastic effect is being studied in othercancers. In this study, we evaluated the anticancer effects of ATO on Invasive ductal carcinoma of breast in cellular and molecular scale. Materials and methods: MTT assay and flowcytometry were carried out to appraise the effect of ATO on cell viability and apoptosis respectively. Gene expression of survivin was measured using real-time PCR. All the experiments were performed in triplicate and the data are shown as mean ± SD. Statistical significances of difference throughout this study were calculated using a Student’s t-test and by one-way variance analysis. P values ≤ 0.05 were considered significant. Results: ATO significantly diminished viability of Invasive ductal carcinoma cell lines MCF7 and T47D in MTT assay. Moreover, analysis of flowcytometry data indicates that ATO increases G2/M arrested cell population thus inducing apoptosis. Conclusion: Our research suggest that induction of cleaved caspase-7, inhibition of survivin and oxidative responses are important events in the antiprolifrative effect ATO in MCF-7 and T47D cells. Finally we propose that ATO, alone or in combination with other drugs, could be a potent anticancer agent for targeting breast cancer.

Arsenic trioxide (ATO), Breat cancer, survivin, apoptosis