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HT-29 colorectal cancer cells undergoing apoptosis overexpress COX-2 to delay ursolic acid-induced cell death

Biochimie, ISSN: 0300-9084, Vol: 93, Issue: 4, Page: 749-757
2011
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Article Description

Colorectal cancer is one of the most common cancer types and the third leading cause of cancer-related death in the western world. Generally, colorectal cancers are resistant to anticancer drugs. Several lines of evidence support a critical role for cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) during colorectal tumorigenesis and its role in chemoresistance. In this study, we focused our interest on the role played by COX-2 in apoptosis induced in HT-29 human colorectal cancer cells by ursolic acid (UA), a triterpenoid found in a large variety of plants. We showed that UA-induced apoptosis and that COX-2 was overexpressed only in apoptotic cells. We demonstrated that this overexpression was mediated by the p38 MAP kinase pathway as inhibiting its activation using a p38-specific inhibitor, SB 203580, abrogated COX-2 expression. Inhibiting COX-2 expression either by using a p38-specific inhibitor or COX-2-specific siRNA increased apoptosis. These results demonstrated that COX-2 was involved in a resistance mechanism to UA-induced apoptosis in HT-29 cells. Cells undergoing apoptosis were able to trigger a resistance mechanism by overexpressing a protein such as COX-2 to delay their death. Furthermore, we demonstrated that this resistance mechanism was independent of PGE 2 production as the addition of the specific COX-2 activity inhibitor, NS-398, did not affect apoptosis in UA-treated cells.

Bibliographic Details

Limami, Youness; Pinon, Aline; Leger, David Yannick; Mousseau, Yoanne; Cook-Moreau, Jeanne; Beneytout, Jean-Louis; Delage, Christiane; Liagre, Bertrand; Simon, Alain

Elsevier BV

Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology

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