The Cytotoxic Effects of Testosterone on Colorectal Cancer (HCT) cells and evaluation of the caspase-3, -8 and -9 activity

The studies have shown that sex steroids affected cancer cells at the cellular and molecular level. The aim of this study was to investigate the anti-proliferation effects of testosterone on colorectal cancer (HCT) cell lines and caspase-3, -8 and -9 activity level.

In this laboratory-experimental study, cells were randomly divided into control group (no exposure to hormone) and groups exposed to 0.001, 0.01, 0.1, 1 and 10 mg/ml of testosterone. The cytotoxic effect of the extract was measured using MTT assay method. Caspase-3, -8 and -9 activity level was evaluated by ELISA method. The data were statistically analyzed between groups using student’s t-test and ANOVA (Tukey).

0.1, 1 and 10 mg/ml of testosterone significantly reduced the viability of HCT cells compared to the control group (P