Naringin may alleviate doxorubicin cytotoxic effects in C2C12 myoblast cells

Abstract

Doxorubicin is one of the first line chemotherapeutic agents used to treat different types of cancer. However, despite its efficacy, doxorubicin can be toxic to muscle tissue and worsen the prognosis of cancer patients. Previously, we investigated the effect of chemopreventive agents curcumin, naringin and epigallocathecin-3-gallate (EGCG), which show anticancer properties in cancer cells, in C2C12 myoblast cells. We found that naringin, a citrus flavonoid, showed no significant cytotoxic effect on C2C12 cells. In this study, we investigated doxorubicin cytotoxicity alone or in combination with naringin against C2C12 myoblast cells, which can be differentiated into multinucleated myotubes. Cell viability assays had been carried out by WST assay, whereas C2C12 differentiation was observed after incubation of C2C12 cells with 2% horse serum and stained with crystal violet. As a result, C2C12 cell viability decreased to 43.89% after treatment with 2 µM doxorubicin for 24 hours. Moreover, C2C12 differentiation is also inhibited by doxorubicin. In contrast, C2C12 cell viability was maintained at 90.45% after treatment with 500 µM naringin. Interestingly, naringin may alleviate doxorubicin cytotoxic effects on C2C12 cell myogenesis.