Effects of vitamin C, and B3, separately, on the apoptotic rate of metastatic breast cancer cells treated with etoposide by green fluorescent assay

Abstract

Apoptosis is one of the nine hallmarks of all cancer and has been the focus of many chemotherapeutic treatments. Indeed, cells that have escaped programmed death mechanisms are extremely difficult to treat. In recent years, researchers have studied the effects of micronutrient supplementation in complementation with drugs such as cisplatin or etoposide, which are aimed to control cell cycle progression and to initiate apoptosis. The triple‐negative breast cancer cell line, MDA‐MB‐231, does not express human epidermal growth factor receptors, estrogen, or progesterone, and is highly aggressive. This study aimed to determine the effect of niacin or L‐ascorbic acid (vitamin B3 & C) supplementation on the apoptotic rate of MDA‐MB‐231 cells treated with etoposide. Relative apoptotic levels were assessed using the Cell‐Event™ Caspase‐3/7 Green Detection Reagent with a TECAN plate reader and statistical analyses were performed in RStudio. The data suggests vitamin B3 and C both increase the relative apoptotic rate of MDA‐MB‐231 cells treated with etoposide. Furthermore, the concentrations of the two antioxidants were at the lower end of the recommended spectrum, indicating that even a relatively small quantity may augment the efficacy of the drug. Our findings demonstrated an increase in cell death following etoposide treatment when supplementing with either vitamin C or B3, but the molecular mechanism underlying this observation is not yet understood.