Suppressive Effect of Crocin and Cisplatin on Pluripotency Genes Expression in Human Cervical Cancer Cells

Cervical cancer is the fourth most common cancer in women. Since pluripotency genes are one of the main contributors of cancer, designing novel combinational therapies that target them would be helpful.
In this study we assayed the anticancer effects of crocin and cisplatin on cervical cancer cells through suppression of Sox2 and Nanog. OV2008 cells were treated with crocin and cisplatin, and the viability and apoptosis were assessed by the MTT and Flowcytometery respectively. The expression levels of mRNA of pluripotency genes were detected by Real-Time PCR analysis.
Our data showed that treatment of OV2008 cells with crocin and cisplatin decrease cell viability in a dose- and time-dependent manner. Also cell cycle analysis indicated that the percentage of apoptotic cells significantly increased after treatment. Moreover, this treatment led to down-regulation of Sox2 and Nanog genes.
So it would be proposed that crocin in combination with cisplatin could induce cytotoxicity in cervical cancer cells through inhibition of pluripotency genes.