In Vitro Effects of Boric Acid and Bevacizumab in Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer

Abstract

Lung cancer is one of the most common types of cancer worldwide and is responsible for the loss of more than 1 million people each year. It has been reported that the 5-year survival rate of lung cancer is approximately 15% or less due to cell metastasis (World Health Organisation, 2020). Therefore, there is a need to develop adjuvant therapies to prevent death from lung cancer cell metastasis. The aim of our study; The aim of this study is to evaluate the effects of boric acid and bevacizumab on the vascularization, apoptotic, and metastasis steps of A549 lung cancer cells, such as invasion, migration, and epithelial mesenchymal transition(EMT) abilities, either alone or in combination. The study was divided into 4 groups as control(CONT) and boric acid(BA), Boric acid+altuzan(BA+ALT) and altuzan(ALT). The IC50 dose of boric acid was determined by the MTT method. 30μM boric acid and 7 μM Altuzan were applied to BA, BA+ALT and ALT groups for 24 hours. Anti-VEGF for vascularization, Anti-Vimentin for EMT, Anti-MMP-9 for invasion, and Anti-Bax, Anti-Bcl-2 and Anti-Caspase-3 antibodies for apoptosis were stained immunocytochemically and H-Score analysis was performed. . Cell migration was evaluated by the wound healing assay. It was observed that MMP-9 immunoreactivity and apoptotic markers increased in the direction of Cas-3 in the BA group, while the immunoreactivity of Vim and VEGF did not change significantly. When the migration was evaluated, it was observed that the cells did not migrate in the BA and BA+ALT groups at the end of the 24th hour, and the wound areas were closed in the other groups. It was observed that while BA affected the migration, invasion and apoptotic characters of A549 cells independently of bevacizumab, it had no effect on their vascularization properties.