Cancer chemotherapy is a big challenge due to the adverse effects of anticancer drugs. Therefore, the effort is to use natural products with therapeutic and safe potential to treat all kinds of diseases. This research aims to discover the anticancer potential of the prebiotic Bovicin HC5.
The survival rate of Huh-7 human hepatocellular carcinoma cells after treatment with different concentrations of Bovicin HC5 was investigated by MTT assay. Assays of caspase 3, 8, and 9 activities in Huh-7 cancer cells treated with the Bovicin HC5 IC50 concentration were conducted to determine the degree of cell apoptosis. Boyden Chambers were used to assessing Huh-7 cancer cells' invasion ability after being treated with sublethal doses of Bovicin HC5. Using specific primers and the Real-Time PCR method, proapoptotic bax and antiapoptotic bcl-2 expression levels in Huh-7 cells treated with the Bovicin HC5 IC50 concentration were quantified. ANOVA statistical test was used to analyze the data (p<0.05).
The results of the MTT test showed that the viability of Huh-7 cells treated with different concentrations of Bovicin HC5 decreased significantly depending on the concentration and treatment time (p<0.001). As a result, a 400 µM concentration and 72-hour duration resulted in the greatest effects. The IC50 concentration of Bovicin HC5 was determined to be 300 µM. The activity of caspases 3, 8, and 9 in treated Huh-7 cells increased significantly after 72 hours in a time-dependent manner and compared to the control by about 1.9 times (p<0.01), and 2.36 times (p<0.01) and 2.62 times (p<0.001)