ENHANCED ANTICANCER POTENCY OF GEMCITABINE IN COMBINATION WITH PROPOFOL IN PROSTATE CANCER

Abstract

For this purpose, the use of anesthetic agents is considered as a new alternative. Therefore, in the present study, the effects of propofol which is an intravenous anesthetic on its own and simultaneously with gemcitabine were investigated on human prostate cancer brain metastasis DU145 and bone metastasis PC3 cells at both cellular and molecular levels. In the first stage of our study, toxic doses of these agents were determined by using the CVDK-8 and lactate dehydrogenase release test. In the following phases, TAC and TOS analyzes were performed to determine the biochemical effects of these agents on cell lines, and also western blot analysis was used to show the inhibition of important oncogenic PI3K/AKT/mTOR pathway in cells treated with these agents. Propofol was found to increase the effectiveness of gemcitabine in both cells. When propofol and gemcitabine were administered simultaneously at high concentrations, they reduced cell viability and increased LDH activity. According to the results obtained from the western blot analysis, the combination of these two agents was found to lead to synergistic inhibition of the PI3K/Akt/mTOR pathway.