Effectiveness of tumor‑treating fields to reduce the proliferation and migration of liposarcoma cell lines

Won Seok Lee; Yoonjung Jang; Ahyeon Cho; Yu Bin Kim; Young Hyun Bu; Somi Yang; Eun Ho Kim

doi:10.3892/etm.2023.12062

Effectiveness of tumor‑treating fields to reduce the proliferation and migration of liposarcoma cell lines

Exp Ther Med. 2023 Jun 9;26(2):363. doi: 10.3892/etm.2023.12062. eCollection 2023 Aug.

Authors

Won Seok Lee¹, Yoonjung Jang², Ahyeon Cho³, Yu Bin Kim³, Young Hyun Bu³, Somi Yang³, Eun Ho Kim¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Biochemistry, School of Medicine, Daegu Catholic University, Daegu, Gyeongsangbuk-do 42472, Republic of Korea.
² Department of New Biology, Daegu Gyeongbuk Institute of Science & Technology, Daegu, Gyeongsangbuk-do 42988, Republic of Korea.
³ School of Medicine, Daegu Catholic University, Daegu, Gyeongsangbuk-do 42472, Republic of Korea.

Abstract

Liposarcoma (LPS) is a rare type of soft tissue sarcoma that constitutes 20% of all sarcoma cases in adults. Effective therapeutic protocols for human LPS are not well-defined. Tumor-treating fields (TTFields) are a novel and upcoming field for antitumor therapy. TTFields combined with chemoradiotherapy have proven to be more effective than TTFields combined with radiotherapy or chemotherapy alone. The present study aimed to assess the effectiveness of TTFields in inhibiting cell proliferation and viability for the anticancer treatment of LPS. The present study used TTFields (frequency, 150 kHz; intensity, 1.0 V/cm) to treat two LPS cell lines (94T778 and SW872) and analyzed the antitumor effects. According to trypan blue and MTT assay results, TTFields markedly reduced the viability and proliferation of LPS cell lines along with the formation of colonies in three-dimensional culture. Based on the Transwell chamber assay, TTFields treatment also markedly reduced the migration of LPS cells. Furthermore, as shown by the higher activation of caspase-3 in the Caspase-3 activity assay and the results of the reactive oxygen species (ROS) assay, TTFields increased the formation of ROS in the cells and enhanced the proportion of apoptotic cells. The present study also investigated the inhibitory effect of TTFields in combination with doxorubicin (DOX) on the migratory capacity of tumor cells. The results demonstrated that TTFields treatment synergistically induced the ROS-induced apoptosis of LPS cancer cell lines and inhibited their migratory behavior. In conclusion, the present study demonstrated the potential of TTFields in improving the sensitivity of LPS cancer cells, which may lay the foundation for future clinical trials of this combination treatment strategy.

Keywords: apoptosis; doxorubicin; liposarcoma; migration; tumor-treating fields.

Grants and funding

Funding: This work was supported by the Rare Isotope Science Project of Institute for Basic Science funded by Ministry of Science and ICT and NRF of Korea (grant no. 2013M7A1A1075764). This work was also supported by a National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) grant (grant no. 2022R1F1A1073750).