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Introduction. Cutaneous melanoma is a challenge to treat due to rapid progression of disease and acquired resistance to therapy. Autophagy and the epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT) are closely interrelated and play a key role in tumor progression. Targeted co-inhibition of MEK and mTOR kinases is a potential target for melanoma therapy by downregulatoin of the EMT.Objective: to study the effect of MEK and mTOR co-inhibition on cell viability, ability to form 3D-spheroids and migratory capacity of melanoma cell lines, and correlation of these changes with EMTand autophagy-related markers.Material and Methods. Melanoma cell lines Mel Z and Mel MTP were derived from patients, who were treated at the N.N. Blokhin National Medical Research Center of Oncology. The antiproliferative effect of binimetinib and/or rapamycin was studied by the MTT -test. 3D spheroids were formed using RGD peptides. Cell migration and invasion were assessed by a Boyden chamber migration assay. The expression levels of autophagy and EMT markers were investigated by immunocytochemistry or immunoblotting.Results. Rapamycin increased cytotoxicity of binimetinib in both 2D and 3D melanoma cell line cultures. At the same time, binimetinib and rapamycin reduced invasion, but not migration capacity of melanoma cells in vitro. The effectiveness of the combination was associated with a decrease in the EMT markers (N-cadherin and β-catenin) and autophagy markers (Beclin 1, p62/SQST M1 and LC3BII ) in melanoma cells.Conclusion. Inactivation of autophagy and EMT leads to overcoming the resistance to current anti-melanoma therapy and can be considered as a promising target for the treatment of melanoma.

Introduction. The investigation of metal substituted organic compounds as potential antitumor drugs is one of the promising areas of research in experimental and clinical oncology.Objective. The pre-clinical study of the original antitumor drug aurum polyacrylate (aurumacryl) which belongs to such new for oncology group of compounds as polyacrylates of metals was the aim of this work.Materials and methods.  Aurumacryl antitumor activity was determined as the tumor growth inhibitory effect against some of the murine solid tumors (Lewis lung carcinoma, Acatol adenocarcinoma and Ca-755 adenocarcinoma). Drug cytotoxic effect against some of the human tumor cells (Mel-Mo melanoma, A549 lung carcinoma, MCF-7 breast carcinoma, HCT116 colon adenocarcinoma) was evaluated with standard МТТ-test. The aurumacryl pharmacokinetics in tumor bearing mice (Lewis lung carcinoma) was studied. The inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry method was used for the estimation of the aurum maintenance in the tested tissues (tumor, blood, kidneys, liver, lungs, spleen, brain).Results. The 80–90 % tumor growth inhibitory effect of aurumacryl against some solid tumors in mice had been revealed in vivo as well as the death of the 60–90 % human tumor cells of various origins in vitro. Beside this the strong decrease of the number of proliferating MCF-7 tumor cells had been shown. The distribution of aurumacryl in the body of the mice with the solid tumor had been revealed.Conclusion. On the base of the data obtained the further study of the aurumacryl as a potential antitumor agent seems rather promising.

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Introduction . Anthracycline antibiotic doxorubicin (DOX) is widely used in clinical oncology. It is known that hemin, endogenious compound, has the ability to modulate DOX cytotoxicity. We found that DOX toxicity against mammalian cancer cells can be decreased in vitro in the presence of teraftal (ТF), the component anticancer binaric catalytic system (TF + ascorbic acid).Purpose . To study the influence of TF on anticancer effect of DOX.Materials and methods . The mouse melanoma cell line B16 / F10 and mouse transplanted tumor B16 were used. The TF ability to protect from DOX-induced cell death were measured by MTT-assay, flow сytometry, light microscopy, cytochemical determination of ß-galactosidase expression, radiometric assay and tumor growth inhibition assay in vivo.Results. The sensitivity of mouse melanoma cell line B16 / F10 to DOX decreased in the presence TF (10–20 mkM) in the mean by 4–6 fold. The same mechanism takes part into the decrease of DOX cytotoxicity at the presence of TF / hemin khown which connects with the cell ability to accumulate of drug. TF protect the mouse melanoma cells B16 / F10 from apoptosis, induced by DOX throwing switching on cell premature senescence programme. The antitumor effect of DOX against mouse transplanted melanoma B16 at presence of TF was the same as DOX alone.Conclusions. The TF potency to decrease the sensitivity of cancer cells to DOX in vitro does not correlate with its ability to modulate аnthracycline antibiotics anticancer effect in vivo.