Human colorectal adenocarcinoma (HT-29) and human embryonic kidney 293 (HEK-293) cell lines were purchased from Iranian Biological Resource Center (Tehran, Iran). The anti-cancer agents, 5-FU and DCA/3Br-P, were supplied by Ebewe Pharma company and Sigma Aldrich (Saint Louis, MO), respectively. Dulbecco's modified eagle's medium (DMEM), fetal bovine serum (FBS), phosphate-buffered saline (PBS), and antibiotic (penicillin-streptomycin) were purchased from Invitrogen Co, (Carlsbad, CA). Furthermore, MTT (3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2, 5-diphenyl tetrazolium bromide), 2,7-dichlorofluorescein diacetate (DCFH-DA), Annexin V/FITC apoptosis detection kit and MitoTracker Green supplied by Sigma Aldrich (Saint Louis, MO) were applied in this work. Moreover, Caspase 3 Assay kit, Bax, Bcl-2, and GAPDH primers were obtained from Qiagen (Hilden, Germany).
Cell culture and treatment
The cell lines, HT29 and HEK-293, were cultured in DMEM media with 10% FBS at 37°C, under a humidified atmosphere with 5% CO2.
Cell counting
The trypan blue exclusion dye assay was applied to determine the number of living cells in a cell suspension. Shortly, 20 μl of trypan blue dye 0.4% was added and mixed with equal parts of cell suspension in a micro tube. Subsequently, one side of a hemacytometer counter was filled with the cell suspension by placing the tip of the pipette at the notch, followed by counting the cells on the stage of a light microscope. The Calculation of cell percentage per milliliter was done via the following formula: cells/ml = average count per square × dilution factor × 104. Moreover, the experiments were performed at least for three times (14).
Cytotoxicity assays
Briefly, the HT-29 and HEK-293 cells were grown in 96-well plate (5000cells/well) in 100µl medium and left overnight to adhere. Then, cells were treated with different concentrations of 3Br-P, DCA and 5-FU alone and combined with together, and incubate in media containing 10% FBS at 37°C and 5 - 6.5% CO2 for 48 hours. After treatment, 10 μl of the MTT (5 mg/ml in PBS) was added to each well and incubated for 3.5 hours in 37 °C. Subsequently, the medium was removed and the formazan crystals were solubilized in 150µl of DMSO. Plates were covered with foil and shacked on an orbital shaker for 15 minutes, and in the final step complete solubilization of the purple formazan crystals and reduced MTT were measured spectrophotometrically by microplate enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) reader at 570 nm according to the filters available for the ELISA reader. Viability inhibition was calculated as follows: cell viability (%) = Ab (test) /Ab (control) ×100 (15).
Measurement of apoptosis and necrosis
This was measured according to ApopNexin™ FITC/PI Kit instructions. In summary, 1.5×105 cells were seeded and treated with different concentrations of 3Br-P, DCA and 5-FU alone and combined together in HT-29 cells for 48 hours. After drug exposure, the cells were harvested, and then were washed with ice-cold PBS and stained with ApopNexinTM FITC kit for 15 minutes at room temperature in the dark. Stained samples were analyzed by Galaxy flow cytometer (ser. No: 0105362) (16).
Caspase 3 Assay
Caspase 3 activity was determined via using the specific caspase-3 substrate, prepared by Caspase- 3 Assay Kit, Colorimetric Qiagen (Hilden, Germany). In short, after treating the cells with 3Br-P, DCA and 5-FU alone and/or combined together, the caspase-3 activity was measured by ELISA at 504 nm, according to the protocol of the kit (17).
Mitochondrial membrane potential (ΔΨm)
MitoTracker Green is a fluorescent color that selectively attaches covalently to mitochondrial proteins in the mitochondrial matrix by reacting with free thiol groups of cysteine roots. Briefly, in each well of 24-well plates, about 105 cells were seeded and incubated overnight, and subsequently treated with 3Br-P, DCA and 5-FU alone and/or combined together for 48 hours. Then, the cells were harvested and incubated with 10 µl of MitoTracker Green for 30 minutes at 37°C in a 5% CO2 incubator. After incubation, the samples were placed on ice and immediately were assessed by flow cytometry (18).
Determination of ROS production
To perform this, 24-well plates were seeded with 105 cells in a complete culture medium and allowed to adhere overnight. In all wells (90% confluence) treated with 3Br-P, DCA and 5-FU alone and/or combined together, cells were washed twice with PBS, followed by staining with 10 µM DCFH-DA for 45 min. Then, after 2, 4, 8, and 12 hours, the formation of fluorescent-oxidized DCF was measured by fluorimetry (535 nm excitation and 635 nm emission) (19).
RT-PCR and qPCR reaction
Total RNA was isolated according to the manufacturer's instructions supplied by Rneasy Mini Kit (QIAgEN-cat. No. 74106.). Afterwards, cDNA was synthesized from 2μg of the total RNA using the Prime Script RT-PCR kit (Quanti Tect Rev. Transcription Kit), according to the manufacturer's instructions. Quantitative real-time PCR (qPCR) assays were performed with Roche LightCycler in 96-wells Gene Discs, using a final reaction volume of 20 µL containing 0.4µl of each forward and reverse primers (with concentration of 10 µmol/L) (Table 1), 2x SYBR Green master mix (as indicated in the results section) and <1ng/µl of cDNA samples. The following thermal profile was applied; the cycling conditions used were as follows: 95 °C for 15 min; 30 cycles of 95 °C for 15 s, 66 °C for 30 Sec. Melting curve analysis was performed by ramping the temperature from 60 °C to 90 °C. All reactions were conducted in triplicate. The fold change of gene expression was calculated using 2−ΔΔCt after normalizing to the expression level of GAPDH.
Statistical analysis
All experiments were performed at least through 3 trials. All quantitative data are expressed as mean ± SD. One-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) followed by Tukey’s multiple comparisons were executed for comparison of different parameters between the groups using a GraphPad Prism 5 software (GraphPad Prism, San Diego, California, The U.S.A.).