Antitumor effect of mifepristone on human endometrial stromal cell line

Abstract

Background/Aim. The main cause for development of endo-metrial hyperplasia is unopposed effect of estrogen on endome-trial cells. The aim of our study was to investigate and compare cytotoxic and apoptotic effects of mifepristone on human en-dometrial stromal cell line for the first time. Both percentage of cytotoxic and apoptotic cells were determined after 24 h treat-ment with different doses of mifepristone. Methods. The per-centage of cytotoxic cell was evaluated by viability assay while the percentage of apoptotic cells was determined using flow cytome-try. Determination of apoptotic effects was confirmed using im-munofluorescence method determining expression and localiza-tion of active Bax and Bcl-2 proteins. Results. Our results indi-cated that mifepristone induced cytotoxic and apoptotic effect on human endometrial stromal cell line (ThESC) through chang-es in expression level of Bcl-2 and active Bax proteins. Conclu-sion. Cytotoxic and pro-apoptotic effects of mifepristone on human endometrial stromal cell line in vitro was investigated in this study for the first time. It is crucial to point out that mifepris-tone expressed both cytotoxic and pro-apoptotic effect on ThESC cell line. Our results may contribute to determination of localization and expression level of the crucial proteins involved in apoptosis in ThESC cell line after the treatment with the low-est cytotoxic doses of mifepristone.