Dual Anti-Metastatic and Anti-Proliferative Activity Assessment of Two Probiotics on HeLa and HT-29 Cell Lines.

OBJECTIVE: Lactobacilli are a group of probiotics with beneficial effects on prevention of cancer. However, there is scant data in relation with the impacts of probiotics in late-stage cancer progration, especially metastasis. The present original work was aimed to evaluate the anti-metastatic and anti-proliferative activity of lactobacillus rhamnosus supernatant (LRS) and lactobacillus crispatus supernatant (LCS) on the human cervical and colon adenocarcinoma cell lines (HeLa and HT-29, respectively).

MATERIALS AND METHODS: In this experimental study, the anti-proliferative activities of LRS and LCS were determined through MTT assay. MRC-5 was used as a normal cell line. Expression analysis of CASP3, MMP2, MMP9, TIMP1 and TIMP2 genes was performed by quantitative reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR), following the cell synchronization.

RESULTS: Supernatants of these two lactobacilli had cytotoxic effect on HeLa, however LRS treatment was only effective on HT-29 cell line. In addition, LRS had no side-effect on normal cells. It was shown that CASP3 gene expression has been reduced after treatment with supernatants of two studied lactobacilli. According to our study, LRS and LCS are efficacious in the prevention of metastasis potency in HeLa cells with decreased expression of MMP2, MMP9 and increased expression of their inhibitors. In the case of HT-29 cells, only LRS showed this effect.

CONCLUSION: Herein, we have demonstrated two probiotics which have anti-metastatic effects on malignant cells and they can be administrated to postpone late-stage of cancer disease. LRS and LCS are effective on HeLa cell lines while only the effect of LRS is significant on HT-29, through cytotoxic and anti-metastatic mechanisms. Further assessments are required to evaluate our results on the other cancer cell lines, in advance to use these probiotics in other extensive trial studies.