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DCA increases the antitumor effects of capecitabine in a mouse B16 melanoma allograft and a human non-small cell lung cancer A549 xenograft

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Abstract

Purpose

Capecitabine is one of the few chemotherapy drugs with high oral availability. Recently, sodium dichloroacetate (DCA) has shown great potential as an anticancer agent. In the present study, we assessed the anticancer effect of DCA in combination with capecitabine for cancers that modestly expressed TP.

Methods

A mouse B16 melanoma allograft and a human non-small cell lung cancer A549 xenograft were used to assess the effect of DCA and capecitabine combined treatment. Histology and immunohistochemistry were used to detect the apoptosis and proliferation of cancer cells. Real-time PCR and Western blot were carried out to detect the expression of TP and caspases, respectively.

Results

For the first time, we report that DCA increased the antitumor effects of capecitabine in a mouse B16 allograft and a human A549 xenograft by promoting apoptosis of tumor cells. DCA has little effect on the expression of TP.

Conclusions

Our finding suggests that DCA in combination with capecitabine might be potential as a new therapeutic regimen against some cancers.

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Acknowledgments

We are very grateful to Wenlong Ren at Shanghai Institute of Pharmaceutical Industry for the assistance in the preparation of the mouse tumor models.

Conflict of interest

None.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biochemistry, School of Life Science, Fudan University, Handan Road 220, Shanghai, 200433, China

    Mao-fa Zheng, Si-yu Shen & Wei-da Huang

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  1. Mao-fa Zheng
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  2. Si-yu Shen
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Correspondence to Wei-da Huang.

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Zheng, Mf., Shen, Sy. & Huang, Wd. DCA increases the antitumor effects of capecitabine in a mouse B16 melanoma allograft and a human non-small cell lung cancer A549 xenograft. Cancer Chemother Pharmacol 72, 1031–1041 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00280-013-2281-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00280-013-2281-z

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