Abstract

Combination therapy has generated significant interest in the clinical setting since it increases the therapeutic potential of anticancer drugs. The potential therapeutic benefits in combination of cisplatin and ciprofloxacin have not been fully explored in hepatocellular carcinoma cancer therapy. In the results to be presented here, cellular viability of Hep G2 and Bel-7402 was determined by the 3-(4, 5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyl-2H-tetrazolium bromide) (MTT) assay and the assessment of synergism, additivity or antagonism was carried out by the median effect analysis. Mechanism of cytotoxicity of the drugs was probed by reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). Cellular DNA breaks were evaluated by comet assay. In addition, the effect of the drugs on topoisomerases was also investigated. The results show that ciprofloxacin could affect viability of Hep G2 and Bel-7402 lines, its combination with cisplatin resulted in mixed interactions; synergistic and additive effect. Further investigation indicated that the synergistic effect or additive was correlated to Fas involved apoptotic path, but the effects in combination on topoisomerases were not evident. The results obtained in this study suggest that the therapeutic benefit of cisplatin anti-hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) may be influenced by ciprofloxacin.

Key words: ciprofloxacin, cisplatin, combination, synergistic effect, hepatocellular carcinoma cell line, apoptosis.