Studies on celecoxib inducing hepatoma cell apoptosis and its mechanism

Objective:To investigate the effect and mechanism of a selective cyclooxygenase-2 inhibitor(celecoxib)on hepatoma cell line SMMC-7721 proliferation and apoptosis.Methods:MTT assay was used to study the inhibitive effect of celecoxib on the growth of hepatoma cell.The effect of celecoxib on cell cycle changes and apoptosis of cells was studied by flow cytometry(FCM).The expression of Bax and Bcl-2 proteins were measured by immunohistochemistry.Results:MTT assay demonstrated that the increuse of inhibition rate on SMMC-7721 proliferation was associated with the increase of celecoxib concentration and exposure time.The celecoxib groups had apoptotic peaks,but not the control one.Besides,celecoxib decreased the expression of Bcl-2,but promoted the expression of Bax protein.Conclusion:The celecoxib inhibited the proliferation and induced the apoptosis of the SMMC-7721 cells in a dose-and time-dependent way.The possible mechanism may be via reducing the expression of Bcl-2,but increasing the level of Bax,through which induced the human hepatoma cell apoptosis by the mitochondria/Cyt C pathway.