Evaluation of anti-proliferative activity of simvastatin and atorvastatin on MCF7 cell line compared with doxorubicin using MTT test

Abstract

Statins are effective to lower the cholesterol level and protect against cardiovascular disease. Recent studies showed that statins have pleiotropic effect and can be used to treat many types of diseases like neurodegenerative disorders, stroke, and cancer. Statins inhibit cell proliferation by suppression of mevalonate pathway leading to desregu-lation of cell signal transduction of some membrane receptor protein which is important for gene transcription. This study was done to evaluate the anti-proliferative activity of simvastatin and atorvastatin on MCF7 cell line alone and in combination with anathracycline chemotherapy drug (doxo-rubicin) using MTT assay. The results showed that simvastatin and atorvastatin had significant anti-proliferative effect on MCF7 cell line in dose-dependent manner with an IC50 10.10 μM and 12.3 μM respect-tively. Moreover, the combination of atorvastatin and simvastatin with (1 μM) doxorubicin had higher cytotoxic effect with an IC50 = 0.07 μM and 0.05μM respectively than doxoru-bicin alone IC50 = 1.9 μM. In conclusion, simvastatin and atorvastatin had anti-proliferative effect on MCF7 cell line and displayed significant synergism with doxorubicin which will help in enhancing efficacy of doxorubicin and decrease the adverse effect.