In vitro effects of mitomycin C on the proliferation of the non-small-cell lung cancer line A549

Non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) is the leading cause of death from cancer in the United States. Chemotherapy prolongs survival among patients with advanced disease, but at the cost of clinically significant adverse effects. As a novel promising oncotherapy method, induced differentiation by mitomycin C has been applied for NSCLC therapy at recent year. In this study, the molecular mechanism of differentiation interruption by mitomycin C in the NSCLC line A549 was investigated. High dosage of mitomycin C (300 µM) could significantly inhibit cell proliferation (P < 0.05) by 48.39 ± 3.32% (P < 0.05), under which cell shrinkage and disruption were observed. Flow cytometry assay showed that the proportion of G1/G0 cells significantly increased, while that of S and G2/M cells significantly decreased after treatment of mitomycin C (10 or 300 µM) for 24 h. These results indicated that cell arrest by mitomycin C appeared. Additionally, up-regulation of retinoblastoma (Rb) gene by low concentration of mitomycin C (10 µM) was detected using immunohistochemistry (IHC) and Western blot assay, indicating a role in the regulation of cell cycle inhibition of this cell line.