The present study aims at defining the differential cytotoxicity effect of artemisinin toward P815 (murin mastocytoma) and BSR (kidney adenocarcinoma of hamster) cell lines. Cytotoxicity was measured by the growth inhibition using MTT assay. These in vitro cytotoxicity studies were complemented by the determination of apoptotic DNA fragmentation and Annexin V- streptavidin-FITC assay. Furthermore, we examined the in vitro synergism between artemisinin and the chemotherapeutic drug, vincristin. The in vivo study was investigated using the DBA2/P815 (H2d) mouse model. While artemisinin acted on both tumor cell lines, P815 was much more sensitive to this drug than BSR cells, as revealed by the respective IC50 values (12 µM for P815 and 52 µM for BSR cells). On another hand, and interestingly, apoptosis was induced in P815 but not induced in BSR. These data, reveal an interesting differential cytotoxic effect, suggesting the existence of different molecular interactions between artemisinin and the studied cell lines. In vivo, our results clearly showed that the oral administration of artemisinin inhibited solid tumor development. Our study demonstrates that artemisinin caused differential cytotoxic effects depending not only on the concentration and time of exposure but also on the target cells.
Keywords: Antitumor activity; Apoptosis/necrosis; Artemisinin; Cytotoxicity; Synergism.