The inhibitory effects of all-trans retinoic acid plus swine bile acid sodium salt on the proliferation and induction of differentiation in human ovarian cancer cell lines

Objective To investigate the inhibitory effects of the combination of all-trans retinoic acid(ATRA) and swine bile acid-sodium(SBANa) on proliferation and induction of differentiation in human ovarian carcinoma cell lines COC_1,COC_2 and CAOV_3 in vitro.Methods Each of the three lines was divided into three treatment groups(regimen A:ATRA alone,regimen B:SBANa alone,regimen C:ATRA plus SBANs).The proliferation of cancer cells lines was evaluated respectively at different drug concentrations by the methodology of tetrazolium-based colorimetric assay(MTT assay);cell cycles were assessed by flow cytometry and morphological changes of the cells were observed by inverted microscopy.Results ATRA plus SBANa showed the synergistic inhibitory effects on the cellular growth and induction of differentiation in all the three-line cells in a dose-dependent manner within a certain concentration range(ATRA≤30μmol/L;SBANa≤150μg/ml).In the regimen C(ATRA 10μmol/L plus SBANa 100μg/ml)the cancer cell population in phase G_0/G_1 increased,but cell in G_2M/S reduced and thus proliferation index(PI)decreased as compared with regimen A and B.At the concentration of ATRA 30μmol/L plus SBANa 100μg/ml,the growth inhibitory rate for the three-line cells was highest.Conclusion It is suggested in the present study that ATRA plus SBANa had more inhibitory effect than ATRA alone on human ovarian cancer cells in vitro and induced more obvious cancer cell apoptosis.