Prooxidative and antimigratory effects of cerium oxide nanoparticles on melanoma and pancreatic cancer cells

Abstract

The development of new types of nanoparticles has become the focus of biomedical research in recent years. Cerium oxide nanoparticles (CONP) have shown particularly promising results as antitumor agents with a selective effect on tumor and normal cells. On the other side, melanoma and pancreatic carcinoma are among the most aggressive types of cancer with no satisfactory therapy1,2 . Considering that, they represent important model systems for studying new treatment approaches. In this study, the antitumor potential of CONP (size below 10 nm) was studied on human A375 melanoma and PANC-1 pancreatic carcinoma cells. The obtained results indicated that analyzed CONP significantly inhibited clonogenic survival, with the number of colonies reduced on ~30% in A375 cells, while treated PANC-1 cells didn’t form colonies. Growth inhibition was followed by G 2 cell cycle arrest (9% for A375, 17% for PANC-1). Percent of apoptotic PANC-1 cells was 38%, whereas ROS production increased for 78%. CONP significantly reduced metastatic potential through the decrease in cell migration and the increase in cell adhesiveness (up to 30 and 40% for A375 and PANC-1 respectively). These findings emphasize the significant CONP antitumor potential, based on the increase in ROS production, as well as a reduction of A375 and PANC-1 metastatic potential.