Author(s)

Abdel-Moneim M. Osman, Mansour I. Sulaiman, Zoheir A. Damanhouri

.
Pharmacology Department, College of Medicine, King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah..

This study deals with the inhibitory effects of dexamethsone on the proliferation of a human melanoma cells after separation into different fractions according to their position in the cell cycle using a gravity sedimentation chamber. Fractions with high percentage of G1 cells were more susceptible to the action of dexamethsone than those with a lower percentage of G1 cells. Dexamethsone stimulated the rate of incorporation of radioactive precursors into acid-precipitable materials of melanoma M-5A cells starting 24 hours after treatment for one hour. Moreover, dexamethsone treatment markedly increased the volume of the M-5A cells with increasing the possibility of stimulating the transcriptional/translational activity in the cells. This study may hopefully stimulate the development of new approaches in systemic and/or regional chemotherapy with malignant melanoma using dexamethsone with other alkylating agents to get synergestic interaction.

Melanoma Cells, Cell Fractionation, Dexamethasone

A. Osman, M. Sulaiman and Z. Damanhouri, "Cytotoxic Effect of Dexamethasone Restricted to Noncycling, Early G1 Phase of Melanoma Cells," Journal of Cancer Therapy, Vol. 2 No. 2, 2011, pp. 253-257. doi: 10.4236/jct.2011.22032.