Aminoethylated chitooligomers and their apoptotic activity on AGS human cancer cells

In this study, the ability of aminoethylation of chitooligomers (COS) to inhibit the proliferation of AGS human gastric adenocarcinoma cells was evaluated using COS with lower molecular weight (<1 kDa). As water-soluble aminoderivatized COS derivatives, aminoethyl-COS (AE-COS), dimethyl aminoethyl-COS (DMAE-COS) and diethyl aminoethyl-COS (DEAE-COS) were synthesized and confirmed by their IR spectra results in comparison to previous study. Aminoderivatized COS-induced cell death was characterized by cell viability, changes in nuclear morphology and cell morphology. All aminoderivatized COS significantly inhibited cell proliferation of AGS cancer cells in a dose-dependent manner. Moreover, protein and gene expression levels of the regulators involved in apoptosis pathway such as Caspase-9, Bax, p53 and p21 were examined using RT-PCR and Western blot analysis. The exposure of synthesized COS derivatives to AGS cells induced apoptotic activity. Therefore, the present results suggest that all aminoderivatized COS derivatives have a promising potential as valuable as cancer chemopreventive agents.