Antimicrobial Peptides as New Combination Agents in Cancer Therapeutics: A Promising Protocol against HT-29 Tumoral Spheroids

Antimicrobial peptides are molecules synthetized by a large variety of organisms as an innate defense against pathogens. These natural compounds have been identified as promising alternatives to widely used molecules to treat infections and cancer cells. Antimicrobial peptides could be viewed as future chemotherapeutic alternatives, having the advantage of low propensity to drug resistance. In this study, we evaluated the efficiency of the antimicrobial peptide gramicidin A (GA) and the anticancer drug, doxorubicin (Doxo) against the spheroids from colorectal cancer cells (HT-29). The two drugs were applied separately against HT-29 spheroids as well as together to determine if they can act synergistically. The spheroid evolution, cell viability, and ATP levels were monitored at 24 and 48 h after the applied treatments. The results show significant drops in cell viability and cellular ATP levels for all the experimental treatments. The simultaneous use of the two compounds (GA and Doxo) seems to cause a synergistic effect against the spheroids.