Organodiselenides for chemotherapy and radiosensitization of human lung cancer (A549) cells: insight from preclinical studies

Cancer is the second leading cause of disease associated death worldwide and accounts for approximately 17% of total death worldwide. Among the cancers of different tissue origins, lung cancer is considered to be highly aggressive, chemo and radio-resistant and difficult to treat. The two major treatment modalities for lung cancer are chemotherapy and radiotherapy. However, target selectivity is the major limitation of these therapies necessitating the need for identification of new candidate drug molecules for chemotherapy and/or radiosensitization. The present thesis work hypothesized that organo-diselenides (R-Se-Se-R), due to their redox modulatory properties could be potential anticancer agents. In order to address this hypothesis, an in house developed organo-diselenide called 3, 3′-diseleno dipropionic acid (DSePA) has been evaluated in detail for chemotherapeutic and radio-sensitizing activity in cellular and in vivo models of human lung cancer. In brief, our studies have revealed that DSePA treatment per se showed significant inhibition of A549 cells in culture with IC50 of 10 μM