Mahsa Alem - Department of Pathobiology, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Urmia University, Urmia, Iran.
Amir Ali Shahbazfar - Department of Pathobiology, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Tabriz, Tabriz, Iran.
Payman Zare - Department of Pathobiology, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Tabriz, Tabriz, Iran.

Introduction Anticancer navigates of artemisinin, traditional Chinese medicine, and different combination therapies with it have been shown in many in vivo and ex vivo experiments such as in leukemia, breast and prostate cancer. The experiments showed that iron and artemisinin cause formation of free radicals and were highly toxic for leukemia and breast cancer cells. Indeed, Iron increased the cytotoxicity of artemisinin toward cancerous cells. Objectives The present study is aimed to study the anticancer effects of combination treatment with artemisinin and iron on the human gastric cancer cell line. Methods AGS cell line as human gastric adenocarcinoma, was cultivated separately as a monolayer in culture flasks and different doses of artemisinin, with different doses of iron sulfate, were added to the culture media and adhesive cells on the flask’s bottom were stained with hematoxylin-eosin for a pathological assay. Results The cell damages increased dose-dependently and they were higher in combination treatment groups (Artemisinin with Iron). The pathological changes were observed especially in the groups with high artemisinin concentration as nucleus swelling, cell swelling, and formation of vacuolization. Necrotic changes as nucleus pyknosis were seen too. Changes in groups receiving combination therapy of artemisinin and iron sulfate gradually became more severe by dose increase. ConclusionPathologic studies showed that the cytotoxic effects of artemisinin were in a dose-dependent manner and presence of iron sulfate enhances the artemisinin anticancer potency and have synergistic effects against cancerous cell line.

Human gastric cancer cell line, Alteration, Artemisinin, Iron sulfate