Investigation of apoptotic effect mechanisms of dulsitol in various breast cancer cells

Cancer is now one of the primary causes of death worldwide after cardiovascular disease and stroke. According to data published in 2018, it was reported that breast cancer is the most common type of cancer among women and the main cause of cancer deaths in the world. Breast cancer is a group of diseases with specific clinical, histopathological and molecular features. The complexity and heterogeneity of breast cancer has led to its classification into different subtypes and the application of various regimens in the treatment. The problems of low efficacy and high side effects of traditional treatment methods applied for the treatment of breast cancer increase the importance of developing new agents for the treatment of breast cancer. Dulsitol, a natural sugar alcohol, is a compound that has been shown to have anti-cancer and anti-inflammatory activity on different cell lines. In recent years, with the demonstration of the effects of naturally-derived compounds on the proliferation of cancer cells, studies to investigate the mechanisms for this activity continue rapidly. In this thesis, it was aimed to evaluate the antiproliferative and apoptotic effects of dulsitol on MCF-7 and MDA-MB-231 breast carcinoma cells. The findings showed that dulsitol significantly reduced cell viability in MDA-MB-231 cells, but was not effective in MCF-7 cells. In addition, it was shown that dulcitol induced apoptosis in MDA-MB-231 cells and significantly reduced MMP-2/-9 mRNA expression. The study in question is important in that it is the first study to evaluate the effectiveness of dulcitol on breast cancer cells, and it is thought that the findings will contribute to the literature.