DRUG REPOSITIONING FOR COLON CANCER TREATMENT: EXPLORING THE PUTATIVE USE OF METFORMIN AND PROPRANOLOL.

LUCIANO ANSELMINO; MARÍA VIRGINIA BAGLIONI; MARÍA JOSÉ RICO; VIVIANA R. ROZADOS; O. GRACIELA SCHAROVSKY; CLAUDIO O. FERNÁNDEZ; VERÓNICA MARTINEZ MARIGNAC; MAURICIO MENACHO MÁRQUEZ

Buenos Aires

Congreso; Reunión conjunta de Sociedades de Biociencias; 2017

Drug repositioning or repurposing in oncology refers to the use of drugs originally formulated for other indications that showed antitumor potential. In this work we made a screening of repurposing drugs that included metformin (M; diabetes treatment), propranolol (P; indicated to treat hypertension), chloroquine (malaria treatment or prevention), DHEA (sexual hormones precursor), orlistat (obesity treatment), atorvastatin (cholesterol treatment) and dichloroacetate (a pyruvate dehydrogenase kinase inhibitor). The antitumor potential of these drugs was evaluated in vitro with HCT116 human colon cancer cells through standard viability assays, either individually or in a combined manner. All the tested drugs had the potential to inhibit significantly HCT116 cells proliferation in a dose-dependent manner. From the combinations tested, M+P resulted attractive as it showed a strong growth inhibition even combining low doses of both drugs (P