Skip to main content
bioRxiv
  • Home
  • About
  • Submit
  • ALERTS / RSS
Advanced Search
New Results

High concentrations of boric acid induce autophagy in cancer cell lines

View ORCID ProfileRuslan Al-Ali, Rogelio Gonzalez-Sarmiento
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/193441
Ruslan Al-Ali
1Molecular Medicine Unit -IBSAL, Departament of Medicine, University of Salamanca-University hospital of Salamanca-CSIC, Salamanca, Spain
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • ORCID record for Ruslan Al-Ali
Rogelio Gonzalez-Sarmiento
1Molecular Medicine Unit -IBSAL, Departament of Medicine, University of Salamanca-University hospital of Salamanca-CSIC, Salamanca, Spain
2Institute of Molecular and Celular Biology of Cancer (IBMCC), University of Salamanca-CSIC, Salamanca, Spain
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • Abstract
  • Full Text
  • Info/History
  • Metrics
  • Preview PDF
Loading

Abstract

Background/Aim Boric acid (BA) is thought to have anticancer effects, but only a handful of studies tackled this subject. Though a very common compound, little is known about its therapeutic value, mechanisms and effective doses. This study investigates into its therapeutic value and autophagy as a possible mechanism.

Materials and Methods We evaluated the potency of BA treatment in seven different cell lines. We hypothesized that autophagy is involved in the mechanism of BA toxicity in tumor cells based on observations in plants, insects and cancer cell lines. Changes in autophagy-related proteins were measured after BA treatment. Finally, we suspected that blockage of autophagy would increase the effectiveness of BA treatment and enable the use of smaller doses.

Results Our results demonstrate that all studied cell lines did not suffer mortality in low to medium doses of BA (up to 5mM). However, a high dose (over 25mM) could inflict significant death in all cell lines. Those high doses caused P62/SQSTM1 consumption and LC3II-B accumulation after 3 days of treatment. Using small doses of BA in combination with autophagy blockage did not improve cytotoxicity in lung cancer cell lines.

Conclusion We conclude that high concentrations of BA affect autophagy in short-term treatments. Not enough data is available about BA toxicity, so BA use as cancer treatment can be possible if new toxicity studies are performed.

Copyright 
The copyright holder for this preprint is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under a CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license.
Back to top
PreviousNext
Posted September 25, 2017.
Download PDF
Email

Thank you for your interest in spreading the word about bioRxiv.

NOTE: Your email address is requested solely to identify you as the sender of this article.

Enter multiple addresses on separate lines or separate them with commas.
High concentrations of boric acid induce autophagy in cancer cell lines
(Your Name) has forwarded a page to you from bioRxiv
(Your Name) thought you would like to see this page from the bioRxiv website.
CAPTCHA
This question is for testing whether or not you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.
Share
High concentrations of boric acid induce autophagy in cancer cell lines
Ruslan Al-Ali, Rogelio Gonzalez-Sarmiento
bioRxiv 193441; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/193441
Reddit logo Twitter logo Facebook logo LinkedIn logo Mendeley logo
Citation Tools
High concentrations of boric acid induce autophagy in cancer cell lines
Ruslan Al-Ali, Rogelio Gonzalez-Sarmiento
bioRxiv 193441; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/193441

Citation Manager Formats

  • BibTeX
  • Bookends
  • EasyBib
  • EndNote (tagged)
  • EndNote 8 (xml)
  • Medlars
  • Mendeley
  • Papers
  • RefWorks Tagged
  • Ref Manager
  • RIS
  • Zotero
  • Tweet Widget
  • Facebook Like
  • Google Plus One

Subject Area

  • Cancer Biology
Subject Areas
All Articles
  • Animal Behavior and Cognition (4227)
  • Biochemistry (9107)
  • Bioengineering (6751)
  • Bioinformatics (23944)
  • Biophysics (12089)
  • Cancer Biology (9495)
  • Cell Biology (13740)
  • Clinical Trials (138)
  • Developmental Biology (7616)
  • Ecology (11661)
  • Epidemiology (2066)
  • Evolutionary Biology (15479)
  • Genetics (10617)
  • Genomics (14296)
  • Immunology (9462)
  • Microbiology (22792)
  • Molecular Biology (9078)
  • Neuroscience (48888)
  • Paleontology (355)
  • Pathology (1479)
  • Pharmacology and Toxicology (2565)
  • Physiology (3823)
  • Plant Biology (8308)
  • Scientific Communication and Education (1467)
  • Synthetic Biology (2290)
  • Systems Biology (6172)
  • Zoology (1297)