The Effect of Taxol and Arsenic Trioxide in HT-29 Spheroid Cells

Human colon cancer is the second most fatal disease among a variety of cancers to cause cancer death in U.S.A. and its incidence rate is currently increased in Korea. Recently, many studies have been being progressed on the efficacy of diverse combination treatments. But results of these studies in vitro were not similar those in vivo. This study compared the anticancer reactions between each use of arsenic trioxide and taxol against human colon cancer HT-29 cell line and combined use of two drugs. And these results compared with the results of HT-29 spheroid cells having similar characteristics to the solid tumor in vivo. The spheroid of HT-29 cells was formed by using a multicellular spheroid system and the result was observed through electron microscopy. In vitro cytotoxicity of each use of arsenic trioxide and taxol was evaluated in HT-29 monolayer cells. The $IC_{50}$ value for arsenic trioxide was to be $33{\mu}M$ and taxol was to be 18nM. The result treated with the combination of taxol and arsenic trioxide decreased the cytotoxicity on the HT-29 monolayer cells. The spheroid cells represented higher resistance against drugs than the monolayer cells. I demonstrated DNA fragmentation after incubation with concentrations more than $10{\mu}M$ arsenic trioxide and 100nM taxol for 48h, on the monolayer cells. But the results of HT-29 cell line treated with the combination of taxol and arsenic trioxide was the same as the outcome of control samples that were not treated with any drug. And I don't demonstrated DNA fragmentation on the spheroid cells. These results suggest that apoptosis was not induced in the use of the combination can be thought as that arsenic trioxide might work as an antagonist to inhibit a taxol mechanism to induce apoptosis. And the spheroid cells represented higher resistance against drugs than the monolayer cells.