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Boric Acid Affects Cell Proliferation, Apoptosis, and Oxidative Stress in ALL Cells

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Abstract

T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (T-ALL) is a type of acute lymphoblastic leukemia from early T-cell progenitors. Interest grows in creating less toxic agents and therapies for chemo-resistant T-ALL cancer. Recently, elemental boron has special properties useful in the creation of new drugs. Studies have revealed the cytotoxic properties of boric acid (BA) on cancer, but not fully understood. We aimed to investigate the effect of BA on cell proliferation, apoptosis, and oxidative stress in the Jurkat cells. The effects of BA on cell viability were determined by 2,3-bis-(2-methoxy-4-nitro-5-sulfophenyl)-2H-tetrazolium-5-carboxanilide (XTT) assay for 24–48–72 h. The impact of BA on apoptosis was analyzed by acridine orange/ethidium bromide. Expression of apoptosis regulatory genes (Bcl-2, Bax, Caspase-3-8-9) and apoptotic miRNA (miR-21) was used by real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR). The total oxidant status (TOS), total antioxidant status (TAS), and the oxidative stress index (OSI) value were calculated for oxidative stress. We determined the cytotoxic activity of BA on Jurkat cells by using XTT and defined the IC50 concentration (802.7 μg/mL) of BA. The findings clearly show that BA inhibited Jurkat cell proliferation dose-dependently. BA induced apoptosis through downregulated anti-apoptotic genes, and upregulated pro-apoptotic genes. Additionally, we found that BA significantly reduced the expression of miR-21 (p<0.001). Our findings demonstrated that different doses of BA increased TAS levels while decreasing TOS levels in Jurkat cells. Our study suggests that BA might be potential anti-cancer agent candidate in ALL via inhibition of cell proliferation, induced apoptosis, and reducing the amounts of anti-oxidants in cells.

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Funding

Our study was approved and supported by The Scientific and Technological Research Institution of Turkey Projects 2209-A by the Project number of 1919B012102036.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Medicine, Izmir Katip Celebi University, Izmir, Turkey

    Büşra Hilal

  2. Faculty of Medicine, Department of Medical Biology, Izmir Katip Celebi University, Izmir, Turkey

    Aslı Eldem, Tuba Oz & Ibrahim Pirim

  3. Vocational School of Health Services, Izmir Katip Celebi University, Izmir, Turkey

    Melek Pehlivan

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Hilal, B., Eldem, A., Oz, T. et al. Boric Acid Affects Cell Proliferation, Apoptosis, and Oxidative Stress in ALL Cells. Biol Trace Elem Res (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12011-023-03958-9

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