Cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) is a potential target for chemoprevention and cancer therapy. Celecoxib, a selective COX-2 inhibitor, inhibits cell growth of various types of human cancer including malignant melanoma. In dogs, oral malignant melanoma represents the most common oral tumor and is often a fatal disease. Therefore, there is a desperate need to develop additional therapeutic strategies. The purpose of this study was to investigate the anticancer effects of celecoxib on canine malignant melanoma cell lines that express varying levels of COX-2. Celecoxib induced a significant anti-proliferative effect in both LMeC and CMeC-1 cells. In the CMeC cells, treatment of 50 µM celecoxib caused an increase in cells in the G0/G1 and a decreased proportion of cells in G-2 phase. In the LMeC cells, 50 µM of celecoxib led to an increase in the percentage of cells in the sub-G1 phase and a significant activation of caspase-3 when compared to CMeC-1 cells. In conclusion, these results demonstrate that celecoxib exhibits antitumor effects on canine melanoma LMeC and CMeC-1 cells by induction of G1-S cell cycle arrest and apoptosis. Our data suggest that celecoxib might be effective as a chemotherapeutic agent against canine malignant melanoma.

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