Objective: Docetaxel, a taxane class agent, has become one of the most important chemotherapeutic agents in the past several years. Currently, more effective treatment options have been investigated by combining new molecules with the classic chemotherapy agents for breast cancer. One of these molecules is EF24, which is a synthetic curcumin analog. We aimed to investigate possible antiproliferative and apoptotic effects of EF24 and docet-axel alone as well as with their sequential administration on MCF-7 breast cancer cells.

Material and Method: 3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide (MTT) and Lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) tests were per-formed to determine the effect of EF24 and docetaxel on cell viability and cytotoxicity. Apoptotic cell death methods were performed using Flow cytometry assay, with selected appropriate doses of the cells. Besides, relative mRNA levels of cMYC and cFOS genes were determined by quantita-tive Real-time PCR method (qRT-PCR).

Results: The viability of MCF-7 cells decreased significantly after treatment with sequential administration of docetaxel followed by EF24 treat-ments, compared to docetaxel alone. Compared to docetaxel alone treatment, EF24 pretreatment overwhelmingly increased apoptosis level in MCF-7 cells. The percentage of apoptotic and necrotic cells were determined by the flow cytometer analysis. Moreover, real-time PCR analyses showed that cMYC and cFOS mRNA levels changed markedly after sequential treatment.

Conclusion: These data suggest that sequential administration of EF24 with docetaxel could be useful as a potential chemotherapeutic agents in the management of breast cancer. Further analyses using in vitro and in vivo models are needed to confirm these findings.