Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 19
Taurine Enhances Anticancer Activity
of Cisplatin in Human Cervical Cancer Cells
Taehee Kim and An Keun Kim
Abstract
Taurine is a nonessential amino acid and has a variety of physiological
and pharmacological effects. Recently, protective effects of taurine against antican-
cer drugs on normal cells were investigated. But anticancer effects of taurine on
cancer cells remain poorly understood. Therefore, we investigated the anticancer
effects of taurine alone and combination of cisplatin with taurine in human cervical
cancer cells. Single treatment of taurine decreased cell proliferation in a time- and
dose-dependent manner. In co-treatment of cisplatin with taurine, cell proliferation
was more decreased than single treatment of cisplatin. Reduced cell proliferation
was caused by apoptosis induction. Thus, after treatment of cisplatin with taurine,
apoptotic cells were investigated. Apoptotic cells were increased more than taurine
or cisplatin alone. Induction of apoptosis was related to p53 expression and activa-
tion of caspase-3, caspase-6, caspase-7, and caspase-9. In present study, the results
indicated that co-treatment of cisplatin with taurine was more effective than single
treatment of cisplatin.
19.1
Introduction
Cisplatin is an effective chemotherapeutic agent that is widely used to treat a variety
of solid cancers. (Go and Adjei
1999
; Boulikas and Vougiouka
2004
) . However,
cisplatin affects not only the cancer cells but also normal cells. For that reason,
cisplatin induces side effects such as ototoxicity, renal damage, gastrointestinal
toxicity, and hematopoietic toxicity. (Gottlieb and Drewinko
1975
; McKeage
1995
) .
Therefore, in order to increase the effectiveness and decrease the side effects of
T. Kim A. K. Kim, Ph.D. (
*
)
College of Pharmacy , Sookmyung Women's University ,
Chungpa-Dong, Yongsan-Ku , 140-742 Seoul , South Korea
e-mail: akkim@sookmyung.ac.kr
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