Effects of some anesthetics on prostate cancer under in vitro conditions

In the present study, the effects of human prostate cancer brain metastasis DU145 and bone metastasis PC3 cells with propofol which is an intravenous anesthetic on its own and simultaneously with gemcitabine, were investigated at both cellular and molecular level. In the first stage of our study, toxic doses of these agents was determined by using the CVDK-8 and lactate dehydrogenase release (LDH) test. In the following phases, Total Antioxidan Status (TAS) and Total Oxidan Status (TOS) analyzes were performed to determine the biochemical effects of these agents on cell lines, and also western blot analysis was used to show the inhibition of important oncogenic PI3K/Akt/mTOR pathway in cells treated with these agents. It was found that propofol increased the effectiveness of gemcitabine in both cells. It was observed that especially when propofol and gemcitabine were administered simultaneously at high concentrations, they reduced cell viability and increased LDH activity. According to the results obtained from the Western blot analysis, the combination of these two agents was found to lead to synergistic inhibition of the PI3K / Akt / mTOR pathway. The data obtained from present study reveals some preliminary data that propofol and similar anesthetic agents can be used together to assist chemotherapy.