Arsenic trioxide induces the apoptosis and decreases NF-κB expression in lymphoma cell lines

Lymphoma is a type of cancer that develops from certain immune system cells. Arsenic trioxide (ATO) has attracted wide attention owing to its antitumor activities. However, the role of ATO in tumorigenesis and progression remains to be investigated. In the present study, the antitumor function of ATO was investigated in in lymphoma Raji and Jurkat cell lines and the effect of ATO on nuclear factor (NF)-κB expression levels. A Cell Counting kit-8 assay was used to assess cellular proliferation and the degree of cell apoptosis was measured by flow cytometric analysis; these assays demonstrated that ATO inhibited proliferation and promoted the apoptosis of Raji and Jurkat cells in a dose- and time-dependent manner. Western blot analysis revealed that ATO treatment affected the expression of apoptosis-associated proteins by downregulating the anti-apoptotic protein B-cell lymphoma-2 (Bcl-2) and upregulating the pro-apoptotic protein Bcl-2-associatedX and the degree of caspase-3 cleavage. In addition, reverse transcription-quantitative polymerase chain reaction and western blot analysis showed that the mRNA and protein expression levels of NF-κB were downregulated significantly following treatment with 2 µM ATO for 24, 48 and 72 h in the two cell lines. Additionally, immunofluorescence staining indicated that NF-κB expression diminished following ATO treatment in a time-dependent manner. These data indicated that ATO inhibited the proliferation of lymphoma cells by inducing cell apoptosis, which may be associated with the inhibition of the NF-κB signaling pathway. The findings of the present study may lay the foundation for developing a personalized medicine strategy using ATO via targeting of the NF-κB signaling pathway in lymphoma.