Study on Apoptosis of Hela Cell Induced by Formaldehyde

Nowadays apoptosis has gained much interest in the environmental toxicology. In order to explore whether formaldehyde could induce apoptosis or not, Hela cells were treated with different concentrations of formaldehyde for 24h. Morphologic observation, MTT assay and flow cytometry were applied to detect the apoptosis of Hela cells in this experiment. Results showed that Hela cells'proliferation was significantly inhibited after treated with FA at low concentrations (≤0.2mmol·L-1)in 24h(p 0.05),while morphological change of cells was negligible, and no significant damage of cellular DNA was observed under the conditions. However, Hela cells'proliferation was statistically significantly inhibited after treated with FA at high concentrations(≥ 0.4mmol·L-1)in 24h(p 0.01),and a small amount of cells shrank into rotundity. Meanwhile, cell nucleus DNA was broken into regular fragment, and apoptosis rate was increased with the elevation of FA concentrations. These experiments showed that the treatment of Hela cells by FA at high concentrations for 24h might induce cell apoptosis; and there was an obviously dose-dependent relationship between FA concentrations and apoptosis rate.