Cancer cells often develop the resistance to pro-apoptotic signaling that makes them invulnerable to conventional treatment. Therapeutic strategies that make cancer cells enter the path of apoptosis are desirable due to the avoidance of inflammatory reaction that usually accompanies necrosis. In the present study phenothiazines (fluphenazine and four recently synthesized derivatives) were investigated in order to identify compounds with a potent anticancer activity. Since phenothiazines are known as multidrug resistance modulators the sensitive human colorectal adenocarcinoma cell line (LoVo) and its doxorubicin-resistant, ABCB1 overexpressing, subline (LoVo/Dx) have been employed as a model system. In studied cancer cells cytotoxic effect of the phenothiazine derivatives was accompanied by apoptosis and autophagy induction as well as by the increase of cellular lipid peroxidation and intracellular reactive oxygen species generation. Molecular modelling revealed that reactivity of phenothazines (manifested by their low energy gap) but not lipophilicity was positively correlated with their anticancer potency, pro-oxidant properties and apoptosis induction ability. Additionally, some of the studied compounds turned out to be more potent cytotoxic and pro-apoptotic agents in doxorubicin-resistant (LoVo/Dx) cells than in sensitive ones (LoVo). The hypothesis was assumed that studied phenothiazine derivatives induced apoptotic cell death by increasing the production of reactive oxygen species.
Keywords: Apoptosis; Cytotoxicity; Doxorubicin-Resistant cancer cells; Lipid peroxidation; Phenothiazine derivatives; Reactive oxygen species (ROS).
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