2.4. Combinatorial Temozolomide and Peptide Treatment
Temozolomide (TMZ) is an anti-cancer drug that is commonly used in chemotherapy to treat brain cancer. TMZ is an alkylating agent prodrug, delivering a methyl group to purine bases of DNA (Zhang et al., 2012). TMZ was purchased from SelleckChem (Houston, TX). Two Cx43 mimetic peptides, ⍺CT1 and ⍺CT11 (LifeTein, Somerset, NJ) were evaluated in this experiment. Different combinations of TMZ and αCT1 or αCT11 concentrations were tested in each cell line to determine the optimal combination. Organoids are treated with combinations of TMZ (0, 10, 100, or 1000 μM) and αCT11 (0, 4, 40, 400 μM) or αCT1 peptide (0, 1, 10, 100 μM) for 7 days, with the drugs and peptide replenished on day 4. TMZ and peptide were dissolved in media and added directly to the organoids.