Oxygen-carbon nanotubes as a chemotherapy sensitizer for paclitaxel in breast cancer treatment.

• Main Authors: Yongkun Wang, Chuanying Wang, Yijun Jia, Xianhua Cheng, Qing Lin, Mingjie Zhu, Yunshu Lu, Longlong Ding, Ziyi Weng, Kejin Wu
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Public Library of Science (PLoS) 2014-01-01
• Series: PLoS ONE
• Online Access: http://europepmc.org/articles/PMC4121325?pdf=render

To study the in vivo and in vitro effects of adding oxygen carbon nanotubes (CNTs) to chemotherapy for breast cancer.MCF-7 and SK-BR-3 breast cancer cells were co-cultured with paclitaxel and then exposed to oxygen-CNTs under hypoxic conditions. Cell proliferation, viability, and apoptosis rate were analyzed. Hypoxia-inducible factor-1 alpha (HIF-1α) expression was measured using reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) and western blot. Nude mice were used as a human breast cancer model to explore the impact of oxygen-CNTs on the in vivo chemotherapeutic effect of paclitaxel.Oxygen-CNTs had no significant effects on the growth of breast cancer cells under normoxia and hypoxia. However, in the hypoxic environment, oxygen-CNTs significantly enhanced the inhibitory effect of paclitaxel on cell proliferation, as well as the apoptosis rate. Under hypoxia, downregulation of HIF-1α and upregulation of caspase-3, caspase-8, caspase-9, LC3 and Beclin-1 were observed when paclitaxel was combined with oxygen-CNT. Furthermore, addition of oxygen-CNTs to chemotherapy was found to significantly reduce tumor weight in the tumor-bearing mice model.Oxygen-CNTs can significantly increase the chemotherapeutic effect of paclitaxel on breast cancer cells. Oxygen-CNTs may be a potential chemosensitizer in breast cancer therapy.