Abstract
Objective: It is known that chemotherapeutics used in conventional cancer treatment induce cellular senescence in both cancer and non-cancerous cells. Important features of senescent cells include prominent changes in cell morphology and the secretion of various cytokines, chemokines, growth factors, and matrix metalloproteinases from these cells, called senescence-associated secretory phenotype (SASP). It has been shown that SASP factors cause chemotherapeutic drug resistance, cancer cell proliferation, and migration in the tumor microenvironment through a paracrine effect. Therefore, developing senomorphic drugs that selectively suppress senescent cell secretion has gained importance as a new adjuvant therapy in cancer treatment. Rho kinase enzyme inhibition has been shown to inhibit the secretory activity of senescent cells. A recent study showed that hydrochlorothiazide, one of the diuretic drugs used to treat hypertension, inhibits the Rho kinase enzyme. In this study, we aimed to evaluate the potential of hydrochlorothiazide, which has been shown to inhibit Rho kinase, as a new senomorphic drug.
Material and Method: Senescence was induced in HeLa cells with doxorubicin, a chemotherapeutic that was determined to induce senescence in our previous studies. Then, senescent cell secretomes were collected in groups with and without hydrochlorothiazide, and senomorphic activity was evaluated by measuring IL-6, one of the most prominent SASP factors in these secretomes.
Result and Discussion: The data obtained in this study show that hydrochlorothiazide reduces both cell size and secreted IL-6 levels in doxorubicin-induced senescent HeLa cancer cells. These data indicate that hydrochlorothiazide has a senomorphic effect. The use of senomorphic drugs as adjuvant therapy to prevent their undesirable effects is important for providing more effective cancer treatment.