Azithromycin enhances the cytotoxicity of DNA-damaging drugs via lysosomal membrane permeabilization in lung cancer cells.

ABSTRACT: Cancer cells use autophagy for growth, survival, and cytoprotection from chemotherapy. Therefore, autophagy inhibitors appear to be good candidates for cancer treatment. Our group previously reported that macrolide antibiotics, especially azithromycin (AZM), have potent autophagy inhibitory effects, and combination treatment with tyrosine kinase inhibitors or proteasome inhibitors enhances their anti-cancer activity. In this study, we evaluated the effect of combination therapy with DNA-damaging drugs and AZM in non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) cells. We found that the cytotoxic activities of DNA-damaging drugs, such as doxorubicin (DOX), etoposide, and carboplatin, were enhanced in the presence of AZM in NSCLC cell lines, whereas AZM alone exhibited almost no cytotoxicity. This enhanced

SUBMITTER: Toriyama K 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8353917 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature