Cytotoxicity Effect and Changes in the Expression of Caspase-9 Gene in Breast Cancer Cell Line (MCF-7) Treated with the Extract of Oscillatoria Cyanobacteria

Breast cancer is one of the most common cancers in women around the world. Problems, such as treatment failure, drug resistance, heavy costs, other problems associated with the treatment of this type of cancer, have attracted the interest of many researchers to cyanobacteria, since these microorganisms have fewer side-effects compared to chemical drugs. In the present research, the effect of Oscillatoria extract was investigated on the viability of MCF7 cell line as well as caspase-9 gene expression.
In this experimental study, MCF7 cell lines, were treated with different concentrations of extract of Oscillatoria cyanobacteria (0.078, 0.15, 0.3, 0.6, 1.2, 2.5, 5, and 10mg/ml) for 24 hours. The effect of the extract on cell viability was assessed using MTT assay. Then, RNA extraction was carried out, and after synthesis of cDNA, real time PCR was performed to assess the expression rate of caspase-9 gene.
With increasing the concentration of the extract, cell viability significantly decreased compared to the control sample. Real time PCR results also showed that the expression of caspase-9 gene increased by 5.59 ± 0.83 (p Oscillatoria extract can destroy cancer MCF-7 cells, which can be due to the increase in caspase-9 gene expression.