Potential Effect of Simvastatin as an Anti-Cancer Agent on SOX7 and SOX9 Expression in Prostate Cancer Cell Lines

Background: Prostate cancer (PCa) is the second leading cause of cancer death in men, worldwide. Geranylgeranylation and farnesylation have a main role in the carcinogenic process, which can be prevented via statins as HMGCOA reductase enzyme inhibitors in cholesterol biosynthesis. These effects might be controlled by several transcription factors such as SOX7 and SOX9, which have been involved in PCa initiation and progression. To the best of our knowledge, no study has demonstrated the association of simvastatin and SOX status in PCa. Therefore, this study is an attempt to evaluate whether simvastatin induces anti-neoplastic effects via the SOX9 and SOX7 transcription factors. Methods: Prostate cancer cell lines LNCaP and PC3 were used to evaluate the expression of SOX7 and SOX9 using quantitative RT-PCR. Results: Our data was analyzed by applying one-way ANOVA and Tukey's test and determined that 0.07 µM of simvastatin after 24 h was sufficient to upregulate SOX7 mRNA expression ratio by 3.58 fold in LNCaP. In addition, the level of SOX9 mRNA expression was increased by 12.18 fold at 0.07 µM after 24 h, 8.67 fold at 0.001 µM after 24 h, and 6.33 fold at 0.07 µM after 12 h in LNCaP and in PC3 cell line. The level of SOX9 mRNA expression was increased by 2.64 fold at 0.5 µM after 24 h and 2.78 fold at 0.1 µM after 12 h, however, it decreased by 0.67 fold at 0.1 µM after 24 h. Conclusions: Our findings suggest that simvastatin can induce the anti-cancer properties via manipulating the expression of SOX7 in LNCaP, as the androgen-dependent cell.