Young WI-38 human fibroblasts apoptosis after to staurosporine exposure: a preliminary assessment

Abstract

Human fibroblasts cell culture is an important technique for the study of cell biology under various conditions, as exposure to apoptotic stimuli such as UV radiation or hydrogen peroxide administration or chemotherapeutic agent derivatives from staurosporine (STP). STP, isolated from Streptomyces staurospores, is a general inhibitor of protein kinases, and is commonly used to induce apoptosis in a variety of cell in cultures as tumor cell lines, lymphocytes, neurons and osteoblasts. The mechanism by which STP induce cell death is still unkown. Some studies refer that STP induced cell death courses with cytochrome c release, caspase-dependent pathway activation, especially caspase-3, and is inhibited by Bcl-2 overexpression. However cell death still occurs after caspase inhibition by z-VAD-fmk suggesting that caspase independent pathway is also activated.