Simultaneous Effect of Cocl2-Induced Hypoxic Condition and Thymoquinone Treatment on the Expression of Sox2 Gene in the Cancerous Mcf-7 Cell Line

Background and aim: thymoquinone (tq), as a major compound of nigella sativa seeds, has been reported to possess anti-tumor activity against variety of tumors such as breast cancer. cobalt ii chloride (cocl2) is a well-known hypoxia mimetic mediator which induced hypoxia-like responses through the induction of hypoxia-inducible factor-1 (hif-1). the present study conducted to investigate the simultaneous effect of cocl2-induced hypoxic condition and tq treatment on the expression of sox2 gene in the cancerous mcf-7 cell line.methods: mcf-7 cells were cultured in t25 flasks in dmem-f12 medium supplemented with 10% fetal bovine serum. the cultured cells at 70% confluency were treated with cocl2 (100 μmol/l) as control group and with cocl2 and tq (500 ng/ml) as treatment group for 24 h. rna extraction, dnase i treatment and cdna synthesis were then performed in control and treatment groups. finally, quantitative real-time pcr (qrt-pcr) was used to evaluate the expression of sox2 gene in treated samples compared to the untreated cells.results: in this study, the effect of tq on the mrna expression of sox2 gene involved in the proliferation of mcf-7 cancerous cell line were evaluated under cocl2-induced hypoxic condition. the results of qrt-pcr indicated that tq at cocl2-induced hypoxic condition decreased the expression of sox2 gene compared to normoxic condition.conclusion: sox2 protein regulates multiple malignant processes of breast cancer such as promotes cell proliferation and thus tumorigenesis through facilitating the g1/s transition. according to the results of this study, we conclude that tq can inhibit mcf-7 cell line proliferation under hypoxic condition. this study provides a good perspective for further efforts to investigate the effect of tq on different cancerous cell lines and tumors under hypoxic condition for cancer treatment applications.