Combination treatment with doxorubicin and gamitrinib synergistically augments anticancer activity through enhanced activation of Bim.

Background: A common approach to cancer therapy in clinical practice is the combination of several drugs to boost the anticancer activity of available drugs while suppressing their unwanted side effects. In this regard, we examined the efficacy of combination treatment with the widely-used genotoxic drug doxorubicin and the mitochondriotoxic Hsp90 inhibitor gamitrinib to exploit disparate stress signaling pathways for cancer therapy.

Methods: The cytotoxicity of the drugs as single agents or in combination against several cancer cell types was analyzed by MTT assay and the synergism of the drug combination was evaluated by calculating the combination index.