Study of anticancer effects of platinum levetiracetam and levetiracetam via cancer biomarkers genes expression on HepG2 cell line.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: High expression of some anticancer biomarkers such as telomerase and B cell lymphoma-2(Bcl-2), microRNA-21(miRNA-21), and low expression FAS ligand (FASLG) are reported in many cancers. Some anticancer drugs such as Levetiracetam(Lev) produce their effects via the change of expression of these biomarkers. The present study aimed to evaluate the anti-cancer effects of a new compound, Platinum Levetiracetam(Pt-Lev), gene expression of mentioned biomarkers on hepatocyte G2 (HepG2) cells compared to Lev. METHODS AND RESULTS: In this study, Human Dermal fibroblast cells (HDF) were used as the negative control group (group A) HepG2 cells were divided into three groups untreated cancer cells as positive group (group B), groups C and D were treated with, Lev and Pt-Lev, respectively. After evaluating lethal concentration 50% (LC50) for the examined drugs using the MTT test, biomarker gene expression was evaluated by real-time PCR. No Apoptotic cell was found in groups C or D before drug treatment, but it was present using different concentrations of the drugs. Results indicated that telomerase and miRNA-21 genes expression was significantly lower and FASLG was higher in group D compared with group C but there was no significant difference for Bcl-2 expression between these two groups. CONCLUSIONS: For the first time, it was indicated that Pt-Lev has anticancer effects by inhibiting telomerase and Bcl-2 and miRNA-21 and increasing FASLG gene expression and its effects were more than Lev. It effectively exerted its anticancer effects by extending apoptosis on HepG2 cells.