Potential Translational Thioflavin T Methodology as a Complement of Cell-Based Assays and after Drug Exposition

Protein aggregation is a common characteristic of several human diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease. Recent evidence has indicated that the aggregation of peptides such as p53 is also marked in cancer cells. The aim of this study was to correlate Thioflavin T (ThT) data with different cellular viability assays (Neutral Red and MTT) in SH-SY5Y neuroblastoma cells and HT-29 colon cancer cells treated with doxorubicin, a classical antineoplastic agent. We also studied the effects of the well-known peptide Aβ42 on the aggregation process in these cells. Our data suggest that both cancer cell lines are responsive to doxorubicin and formed aggregates, highlighting a relationship between ThT and cellular viability methodologies. We observed that lower values of cell viability corresponded with pronounced aggregation. Thus, these results indicated that the ThT methodology used in cells may complement the cell viability assays. In addition, this methodology may be of interest to evaluate the role of protein aggregation in other cancer cells.