Investigation of the interaction of 5- fluoruracil and cisplatin chemotherapeutic agents with doxycycline antibiotic in oral cancer cell line

Oral cancers are malignant neoplasms with local destruction and metastasis capacity seen in the anatomical area including the oral cavity and lips. According to the World Health Organization (WHO) data, the incidence of oral cancer is estimated to be 4 cases per 100,000 people. Oral cancers have always been an important research topic due to their effects on the quality of life of patients, low treatment success rates and serious side effects of treatments. In order to reduce the side effects of traditional treatments, many different methodologies have been tried in recent years, and especially in recent years, the anticancer properties of antibiotics as well as herbal and animal-derived preparations have been started to be investigated. Doxycycline is an antibiotic generally used in the treatment of upper respiratory tract infections, pneumonia, bronchitis, sexually transmitted diseases, gastrointestinal diseases, periodontal diseases and staphylococcal infections. In this study, in order to investigate its possible anticancer properties, doxycycline, together with 5- Fluoruracil (5-FU) and cisplatin chemotherapeutic agents, was applied to the squamous tongue cancer cell line (OSC-19) individually and in combination at different doses and at different times. A healthy lung fibroblast cell line (MRC5) was used as a control group. WST-1 method was used for cytotoxicity test and Annexin V method was used for apoptosis/necrosis determination in the study. The results showed that the combination of doxycycline administered at 25 μM concentration with 25 μM cisplatin increased early apoptosis although not significantly, while its combination with 25 μM 5-FU significantly increased early apoptosis (p<0.05). According to the results of this study, it was observed that the combination of doxycycline and chemotherapeutic agent has the potential to lead to further studies with additional parameters.