The roles of natural antisense transcripts in cancer

Cancer is a genetic disease that results from the survival of damaged cells and uncontrolled cell proliferation. The number of studies is increasing in parallel to increasing numbers of new cancer cases and cancer-related deaths. Accordingly, in this study, the role of some natural antisense transcripts (NATs) in cancer was assessed. The anticancer activities 17B and 8A thiosemicarbazone derivatives, which is not yet determined, and their effects on the expression of NATs and regarding protein-coding genes is also evaluated. Firstly, expressions of NATs in various normal human tissues and cancer cells were determined and NATs had specific expression patterns compared to their potential target genes. Moreover, MTT cell viability assay was used to investigate anti-proliferative activities of well-known cancer drug 5-FU, and 17B and 8A and active doses were calculated accordingly. Also, the effects of these chemicals on induction of apoptosis and cell-cycle were determined by flow cytometry. 17B and 8A were induced apoptosis in MCF7 and U2OS cancer cells. Interestingly, 17B and 8A were interfered with the cell-cycle by causing arrest at G0/G1 and S phases, respectively. Consistently, slower rate of migration was observed in cells treated with 17B and 8A chemicals. Additionaly, while 17B reduced the level of expression of NATs in some cells but increased it in some, 8A was found to induce expression of NATs in all cells in a time-dependent manner. Consequently, these findings strongly suggest that 17B and 8A can be novel anti-cancer agents by altering expression of NATs and regarding target genes.