The Effect of Dimethyl Sulfoxide (DMSO) on the Growth of A2780 Cancer Cell Line

The Effect of Dimethyl Sulfoxide (DMSO) on the Growth of A2780 Cancer Cell Line

Dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO), a by-product of the wood industry, has been in used as a commercial solvent since 1953. It is also one of the most used but least understood pharmaceutical agents of our time. In the United States, DMSO has Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval only for use as a preservative of organs for transplant. In the research laboratories DMSO is commonly used as a vehicle to solubilize and water insoluble drugs and to increase the membrane permeability of drugs during in vitrotreatments. In cell culture laboratories DMSO is also used as a cryoprotectant to help protect the cells from dehydration and rupture by the formation of ice crystals. The most commonly used concentration of DMSO for cryopreservation is 10%. We accidentally discovered the cell growth arrest and apoptotic ability of DMSO on A2780 ovarian cancer cells during one of our cell culture experiments. In order to further explore the cell growth arrest ability of DMSO we conducted several experiments. When A2780 cells were incubated with increasing concentrations of DMSO, ranging from 0.5% to 8.0%, for up to 6 days interesting findings were obtained. It was quite obvious that DMSO was able to produce significant cytostatic effects on the ovarian cancer cells at lower concentrations while at high concentrations it produced apoptotic effects. Some of these findings are consistent with the observations reported by other laboratories which have looked at the effect of DMSO on the cell growth, and changes in the cells morphology. Our experiments went far and beyond assessing the cell growth in the presence of DMSO, we analyzed the expression of a critical gene and gene protein that are related to cell cycle progressions. Our findings clearly indicate the ability of DMSO to induce dual effects on ovarian cancer cells. (This research was supported by the PFRDG grant of NSU)