The pragmatic sharp rise in the incidence of OSCC as more than 400,000 people worldwide, beside the documented side effects related to the administration of most of the chemotherapeutics agents were potent essentials for constant searching about other effective alternatives for treatment of OSCC [1]. Many reported issues regarding mastication, swallowing, communication and aesthetics are reported as a complication of such OSCC, which is considered as one of the most prevalent cancers nowadays [1]. These documented complications usually have a bad impact on the patient’s quality of life. Thus, there are continuous notable advancements in cancer research regarding development of new therapies especially the anticancer target therapy for such critical disease with high rate of mortality[2].
CBZ is typically used to treat clinical trigeminal neuralgia cases as it possesses antimanic and potent neuro prophylactic properties [3, 4]. CBZ drug was chosen (as an antiepileptic drug) in the current study, as it was reported previously that combination of CBZ with conventional chemotherapy and/or radiation therapy enhances their antitumor benefits [16]. In a previously performed in-vitro study on cancer cell line, CBZ was discovered and reported with its ability to inhibit HDAC [5–7].
The anticancer effect of HDAC inhibitors was earlier confirmed through a documented case-control study by Salminen et al. (2016), who concluded that the use of antiseizure drugs such as CBZ (HDAC inhibitor) could potentially reduce the clinical risk of developing malignancy. They compared the use of antiepileptic drugs among individuals with prostate cancer (cases) to those without prostate cancer (controls) [18].
Angiogenesis-related genes including vascular endothelial growth factor and Hypoxia-inducible factor were found to be down-regulated in response to the anticancer and antiangiogenic effects of HDAC inhibitors [5, 6]. To date, according to our knowledge, Akbarzadeh et al. (2016) has reported only the cytotoxic potentials of CBZ against human colon cancer (SW480) cell line [16]. This study was followed by Sohaiband Ezhilarasan, 2020, that suggested CBZ drug to be a promising anticancer agent in treating colon adenocarcinoma cell line (HT-29 cells); this was attributed to its robust HDAC inhibitory property [7].
This study novelty was to assess the anticancer effect of CBZ drug on OSCC cell line which was not previously detected on this type of malignant tumor cells, and ensure if CBZ can be clinically introduced as adjuvant anticancer agent. The tongue SCC cell line was chosen in this study owing to its simplicity in methods of extraction and cultivation[17].
The MTT assay was used to assess the cytotoxicity of CBZ in HNO-9 cells, as it is one of the most commonly utilized cytotoxicity assays according to the current literature. This is attributed to its availability, simplicity, inexpensive and affordable type of techniques, (considered as a gold standard assay) to assess cytotoxicity [17, 19].
Regarding our findings in the MTT Assay, the cell viability percentage in the intervention group (t/HNO-97) showed gradual decrease with increasing concentrations of the CBZ drug. Similar results were documented through an in vitro study by Sohaib and Ezhilarasan (2020), who reported the cytotoxicity of the CBZ drug after giving various doses to adenocarcinoma cell line (HT-29 cells) for 24 hours. CBZ administration caused a significant (P < 0.001) and concentration-dependent cytotoxicity in HT-29 cells at concentration ranges of 5, 10, 20, 40, and 80 µg/ml They previously suggested that the cytotoxic potentials of CBZ drug was attributed to the accumulation of ROS intracellular molecules in HT-29 cells. Which finally will elevate the induction of the oxidative stress, which subsequently damages the cell membrane thus; it will trigger the process of cellular apoptosis [7].
For establishment of the proper CBZ drug dose, IC50 value on (t/HNO-97) cell line was determined in our study. This is a very informative test, which is widely used in laboratories to measure drug efficacy [20].In our study the IC50 of CBZ drug in (t/HNO-97) group was estimated to be 220 µg/ ml by the MTT assay, ensuring that this dose of CBZ is required to inhibit 50% of TSCC cell viability and growth.
In a similar and previously published study done by Akbarzadeh et al. (2016) who also determined the IC50 value for CBZ and reported it to be lower than the IC50 value recorded in this study, as they were assessing anticancer effect of Valproic acid (VPA) and CBZ on colon cancer cell lines. The difference in the previously mentioned values is attributed to the difference in the type of cell lines used in the experiments [16].
Examination of cellular morphological changes under ordinary transmitted light microscopy after H&E staining of cell lines in both study groups was done in this study. H&E staining is considered as a gold standard diagnostic staining for examination of histological and cytological changes in morphology [21, 22]. According to the scientific literature the process of apoptosis was microscopically distinguished by some characteristic morphological changes in the cell as (cellular shrinkage, dense chromatin condensation and formation of apoptotic bodies). All these features could be figured out easily from our documented photomicrographs of H&E-stained slides in the intervention group (t/HNO-97). Our reported apoptotic cellular signs in SCC cell lines stained by H&E staining are similar to the findings documented previously by Mohamed Aziz et al. (2021) as they investigated apoptotic effect of graviola on HNO-97 cell line [23]. In addition to another study done by Oh et al. (2020) who investigated the apoptotic effect of Formononetin, (a phytoestrogen extracted from herbal plant) on pharyngeal SCC cell line [24].
The ELISA technique was used as a method of quantification of ROS activity in our study as it is a well-known available and affordable test. We used to quantify ROS cellular expression in this study as previous studies have suggested that HDAC inhibitors can cause cytotoxicity in a range of cancer cells by generating ROS [17].
Results have shown that the (t/ HNO-97) group has statistically significantly higher measured values of ROS expression by ELISA than the (c/ HNO-97) group. The reported findings regarding ROS expression were on the same line with a study by Eghbal et al. (2013). It was found that the treatment of CBZ drug in freshly isolated rat hepatocytes induced oxidative stress, which cumulated the generation of ROS and products of lipid peroxidation. Also, another study previously tested the effect of Syzygiumcumini on OSCC, documented those treatments caused cell death and increased the presence of ROS within the cells, leading to cellular damage and apoptosis. The OSCC cells in those studies showed elevated levels of apoptosis and morphological changes in membrane composition [25, 26].
In the current study, quantification of PUMA expression as potent cellular apoptotic indicator cellular was performed by ELISA for both study groups. This test is used in some reported studies as an alternative indicator for caspase − 3, which was studied previously in an invitro study [16]. PUMA was chosen for its implication in triggering intrinsic pathways of the process of cellular apoptosis. In addition, it played a new function in controlling the anticancer effects of MEK inhibitors [17, 27]. Regarding our PUMA expression findings, it was clearly observed in (t/HNO-97) with statistically significantly greater values than in (c/HNO-97). Illustrating this point form cellular/molecular aspect, the DNA damage usually activates accumulation of ROS then the ATM/ATR-p53-PUMA-Bax oligomerization then cytochrome c release and therefore leads to caspase-9 activation pathway. After the activation of initiator caspase (caspase-9), a final activation of caspase-3 will take place, thus leading to start the mechanisms of cellular apoptosis.this mechanism was clearly illustrated by Sohaib and Ezhilarasan (2020), who documented the potential apoptotic effect of CBZ drug on adenocarcinoma cell line (HT-29 cells) by measuring caspase-3 cellular levels [7].
Our reported findings were compared to another previous reported study which used VPA drug, which was found to increase the cytotoxicity of temozolomide (a drug used to treat specific types of brain cancer) by inducing apoptosis via boosting the activation of the p53 pathway and elevating the expression of its downstream target gene, PUMA [28]. Taken together with the previously mentioned studies and the current findings of decreased cell viability, increased cellular ROS and PUMA cellular levels induced by CBZ drug in OSCC cells, we strongly suggest that this CBZ drug has anticancer potentials against OSCC. Our provided data is likely to be confirmed by further in-vivo studies. However, we acknowledge the limitations of our in vitro study, including the lack of the vivo validation and the potential differences in drug effects in a living organism compared to cell cultures.