Background: Despite significant improvements in the conventional anti-ovarian cancer therapies, tumor cell resistance to various cytostatic drugs remains a relevant problem. Therefore, the new cancer treatment strategies are being developed. Among many agents that have been studied for their potential anti-cancer activity, the most promising are the nitric oxide (NO) donors-syntethic compounds that release NO in vivo and/or in vitro.
Aim: We have evaluated the effect of NO donors on the SK-OV-3 and OVCAR-3 ovarian cancer cell lines. We assessed some of the cancer cells' specific features: the uncontrolled proliferation, over-activation of particular signaling proteins, high resistance to therapeutics and elevated expression and secretion of invasiveness/metastatic factors.
Methods: Two members of NONOates family were used: SPER/NO and DETA/NO. Cancer cell lines were cultured with different concentrations of NO donors. The cytotoxic, pro-apoptotic activity of NO donors and their impact on the phosphorylation status of STAT-3 and AKT in cells were determined. The expression of VEGF-A, MMPs and TGF-β was also evaluated.
Results: NO donors inhibited ovarian cancer cells growth making them also more susceptible to the cisplatin cytotoxic activity. Moreover, both NO donors induced apoptosis of cells and decreased activity of signaling proteins (STAT3 and AKT). Similarly, SPER/NO and DETA/NO lowered the secretion of pro-metastatic factors, responsible for cancer cells invasiveness.
Conclusions: The obtained results show that both NO donors demonstrated a wide range of action on both ovarian cancer cell lines. Therefore, they have a high potential of being a supporting compounds in the cancer therapies.
Copyright © 2015. Published by Elsevier B.V.